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EMBERS 

WITH 

THE FAILURES, THE GARGOYLE, 

IN HIS HOUSE, MADONNA, 

THE MAN MASTERFUL 

ONE-ACT PLAYS OF CONTEMPORARY LIFE 



BY 

GEORGE MIDDLETON 

1! 



Who ever knows what is right? The answer always lies 
so many years beyond. 




NEW YORK 
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
191 1 



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"^y ^s^ 



V 



v<<^" 



Copyright, 191 i, 

BY 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 



Published October, 1911 

Entered at Stationers' Hall 

These plays in their present printed form are designed for the 
reading- public only. All dramatic rights in them are fully pro- 
tected by copyright, and no performance may be given without the 
written permission of the author and the payment of royalty. 



THE QUrNN & BODEN CO. PRESS 
fiAHWAV N. J. 



CCI.D 25516 






To 



G. C. AND I. V. M. 



PREFACE 

These little plays were written for acting, but 
arranged for reading. Knowing how small an oppor- 
tunity the professional stage in this country gives for 
the serious one-act drama so common on the Continent, 
they are modestly offered to those who see some dignity 
in the form, and who realize that certain dramatic 
ideas find their best expression in the concentrated 
episode. The growing demand, also, among readers 
for plays has encouraged the author to write these, and 
their unexpected publication in the magazines has 
prompted him to bring them together. 

They make no pretense save to show character in 
action, and, in several instances, to picture its different 
reactions from the same stimulus. They are studies 
in consequences and readjustments, being, in fact, a 
further expression of some preceding situation. Each 
play is, therefore, the epitome of a larger drama which 
is suggested in the background. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Preface v 

Embers i 

The Failures 41 

The Gargoyle 69 

In His House 99 

Madonna i35 

The Man Masterful 163 



EMBERS 



THE PEOPLE 

The Hon. Mason King, a Diplomat. 
Ruth Harrington, a widow. 
Jasper, her son. 
Maid. 

SCENE 
Mrs. Harrington's Sitting Room. 



EMBERS* 

A a iHE curtain discloses the abode of quiet unim- 
m portance. Some plaster casts upon the old^ 

-^ fashioned mantel above the fireplace, at the 

rightj and a few^ dark-framed engravings on the walls 
reveal the native refinement of the occupant. The fur- 
nishings are subdued in tone; dull curtains cozily drape 
the window at the left and the door near this which 
leads into another room. At the back, in the center, 
large doors open in from the hallway. Above the 
sofa, crept in from another period of life, is suspended 
a shaded lamp, which, when lighted, softly floods part 
of the room. 

Mrs. Harrington is discovered sitting beside the 
sofa where her son Jasper is lying asleep. He is a 
young man full of latent strength, with a sincere and 
persuasive charm. Mrs. Harrington is in the late 
forties; her slightly grayed hair fringing a face sweet- 
ened and chastened by a life of obvious resignation. 
Her manner is calm and full of understanding, with 
its strange suggestion of unattained ideals. She is 
simply but tastefully dressed. 

♦Copyright, 1911, By George Middleton. All rights 
reserved. 

3 



4 EMBERS 

There is a long pause. The daylight is fading from 
the gray winter sky. The clock strikes five slowly. 
Jasper turns in his sleep and laughs ironically, then 
sighs deeply. Mrs. Harrington rises, pulls his dress- 
ing-gown about him, lights the lamp, looking at 
Jasper, and shaking her head sympathetically. She 
shades the light from his pale, drawn face which shows 
pronounced traces of recent and persistent dissipation. 
She pulls down the window curtains, completely shut- 
ting out the daylight. The room is full of shades, 
shadows, and silences. A soft knock is heard. 

Mrs. Harrington 

Come in. Sh! {The door in back opens, and The 
Maid, in conventional black dress, enters with a 
letter.) At last. {Disappointed) He has sent an 
answer ! 

{She takes the letter eagerly to lamp, sits, looks 
tenderly as though having seen the handwriting 
for the first time in a long while. The Maid 
fixes the fire, and the dancing flames soon add 
a sense of comfort to the room. Mrs. Har- 
rington opens letter, reads, sighs in relief at 
contents, looks at Jasper, and drops her head 
in silent recollection.) 

Maid 
Is Mr. Jasper — ? 



EMBERS 5 

Mrs. Harrington 

Oh, he's better. Only a headache. (Maid starts 
to leave.) I am expecting Mr. Mason King. Let 
me know at once. 

(Maid goes out, leaving door in back open. 
Mrs. Harrington rises, connects letter in 
her mind with her boy, and goes back to close 
door. Jasper tosses about, sits up, and, be- 
lieving he is alone, speaks from a genuine grief, 
unheard by Mrs. Harrington.) 

Jasper 

She's not worth it. To lead me on. And then 
toss me over for — . Damn her ! — Oh ! {He puts hand 
on head, turns, and sees Mrs. Harrington, thinking 
she has just entered.) Hello, mother. Just come in 
to see me? What time is it? My eyes feel — 

Mrs. Harrington 

{Tenderly and without reproach throughout) 

You've slept all afternoon. You were very tired. 
It's after five. 

Jasper 
I've an engagement at six. Some new friends. 

Mrs. Harrington 
{Concealing her objection) 
Then you've hardly time to dress, dear. 



6 EMBERS 

Jasper 

See here, mother — Well, well, don't wait up for 
me. I may be late again. Please don't. {He sits 
down. Mrs. Harrington takes key from the 
mantel.) 

Mrs. Harrington 

You left this in the door last night. (Jasper pockets 
it J rather ashamed. Mrs. Harrington embraces him.) 
My boy! my boy! {He gently turns his lips from her 
attempted kiss.) 

Jasper 

Don't, mother. I'm not worth — oh! — ^why are you 
so good to me? Why don't you tell me what I am? 
I know, I'm a cad. I've lost hold of myself com- 
pletely. 

Mrs. Harrington 
We all do at times, Jasper. 

Jasper 
You never did. 

Mrs. Harrington 
{Smiling sadly) 
I've made mistakes! 



EMBERS 7 

Jasper 

I can't stop it. Something drives me on — on. 
Every time I think of — oh! — you don't knov^^ — ; you 
wouldn't understand. 

Mrs. Harrington 

Perhaps not. But I see my son is not himself: his 
eyes are not so clear, his face is drawn, his hands 
cold. Besides, he has lost all his ambition, his — 

Jasper 
{Uncomfortably) 
I must be getting ready. 

Mrs. Harrington 

{Eying him tenderly) 

Yes, — yes, — dear. (Maid re-enters with card which 
she gives to Mrs. Harrington.) So soon? Take 
his things: don't keep him waiting. (Maid exits, 
leaving door open. Jasper reads card as Mrs. Har- 
rington hands it to him.) 

Jasper 

Mason King? Haven't the papers been full of his 
pictures lately and — 

Mrs. Harrington 
Yes. I'd like you to meet him. 



8 EMBERS 

Jasper 

It's a great privilege, but I'm not keen for states- 
men. • 

Mrs. Harrington 

(Reminiscently ) 

He was not so famous when I first knew him. He 
was about your age. 

Jasper 

(Absently referring to many dog-eared magazines 

about) 

Do you still keep all his articles and speeches? 

Mrs. Harrington 

I have always been deeply interested; though it's 
been many years since — 

Jasper 

(Impulsively) 

I don't want memories. I couldn't live If I looked 
back. {Changing in mood as she gently watches him) 
Oh! mother, I didn't mean to be disagreeable. 
(Starting to leave) I don't know when I'll be back 
to-night. 

Mrs. Harrington 

(Tenderly while detaining him) 

Jasper, you're troubled deeply — ^very deeply. I see 
that. I haven't asked a word. Boys can't tell their 



EMBERS 9 

mothers everything, just because they are mothers, can 
they? But you would feel better, dear, if you could 
talk over whatever it is with some one. {Still de- 
taining him) Couldn't you go to Ethel? 

Jasper 

{Laughs ironically) 

Ethel! Ha! Ha! 

{He slams door as he goes out. Mrs. Har- 
rington, deeply moved, realizes the cause of 
his mood.) 

Mrs. Harrington 

Oh, forgive me! So that's why! Poor boy: no 
wonder. 

{Pause, She turns. Mason King enters. 
They stand alone a long while, looking at each 
ofher without shaking hands. The scene is 
quiet and suggestive of hidden emotion. 

Mason King is an imposing, authoritative man 
past fifty; his face tells of one deeply versed 
in the struggle with realities, yet possesses a 
kindliness which colors all he says. There is 
a deep reverence in his attitude towards Mrs. 
Harrington which, at times, embarrasses his 
apparent social ease.) 

King 
It seems like yesterday. 



10 EMBERS 

Mrs. Harrington 
Since you left me? 

King 

With your answer. 

Mrs. Harrington 
You recall that first — after the absence? 

King 

Your answer made the absence. 

Mrs. Harrington 

(Cautiously) 

" I am sure we can talk calmly now — ^without pain 
to you? 

King 

There was no pain in my heart then — only empti- 
ness. 1 

Mrs. Harrington 
Yet, after I married — 

King 

My letter told how glad I was you had found hap- 
piness. 



EMBERS II 

Mrs. Harrington 

Happiness? {She smiles vaguely.) And you said 
thetij as before, if ever I needed you — 

King 

That is why I am here now. 

Mrs. Harrington 

Come closer. (He comes within lights as she looks 
at him.) Your jaw has squared a bit; that's because 
you determined to do things. Your eyes are steadier; 
that's how you did things. 

King 

Do you see anything to tell why I've done things? 

Mrs. Harrington 

Yes. But I can't quite make it out. Some great 
resolve hidden from everybody. (Less seriously) You 
must tell me some day. 

King 

(Slightly surprised) 
You are still interested? 

Mrs. Harrington 

I have followed your career upwards. (She falters 
under his intense gaze, then continues less seriously) 



12 EMBERS 

Oh, the light also betrays the lines of an aging 
woman, eh? You can read little there: a marriage, 
a mother, a widow — and some dreams unrealized. 
Foila tout! 

King 
But a mother! 

Mrs. Harrington 

{With great joy) 

Yes. That! {Looks toward door.) It is about my 
son. He mustn't know I sent for you. Won't you 
sit down? {She sits: he looks about room.) Does 
it seem like me? 

King 
Yes. As I've sometimes thought you might be. 

Mrs. Harrington 

{Pleased and surprised) 

You've really thought of unimportant me? {He 
bows. She looks about, too, with a touch of con- 
cealed bitterness.) They are souvenirs of my married 
life. {She motions him to sit. He does, watching 
her. Pause.) Confess. You've been silently meas- 
uring me. Do you remember, with sufficient vivid- 
ness, the original — now that you see the faded negative? 
She was a girl with hopes and dreams, wasn't she? 
And now, she's a woman with — 



EMBERS 13 

King 
Pleasant memories, I trust. 

Mrs. Harrington 

{Starts to deny: hesitates) 

But there's no occasion to be too serious — eh? 
{More casually) You see, Vm talking just as we did 
in the old days. It's strange: I've always felt, when 
I thought of you — and it's been often — that somehow 
you did understand me, that no matter what hap- 
pened, I could still turn to — {She shrugs her shoul- 
ders.) Much has happened, but I didn't bother you, 
because — well — I've been away so long, — and — 
{Tenderly) in the early years I was vain enough to 
think perhaps it might open a wound. {He bows.) 
But now — well, I turn to you to help me with my son. 

King 

{Coming out of his reminiscent mood) 

Forgive an unsociable guest. With gray hairs, I 
fear I've grown to be rather a silent body. Of 
course, I'll help the boy — if I can. What's the 
trouble ? 

Mrs. Harrington 

( Clearly ) 

The remedy lies in a long trip with a dominating 
interest sufficient to gather his scattered energies into 
one definite channel. 



14 EMBERS 

King 

(Smiling) 
YouVe thought it out. 

Mrs. Harrington 
He's been very unhappy. 

King 

Cynics would scent a woman. 

Mrs. Harrington 
I don't want to be disloyal to him. 

King 

Has he told you anything? (She shakes her head,) 
Then your intuitions alone have discovered — ? 

Mrs. Harrington 
What and who it is? Yes. 

King 

Is it roses or just wild oats? 

Mrs. Harrington 

(With conviction) 

The best. They've been pals. It must have been 
something else with Jasper. (King understands.) 



EMBERS 15 

I imagine she's going to marry. I've known her 
myself for years. She would have been worthy of 
my boy. 

KlUtG 

{Sincerely) 

Then he's a lucky chap: — we must make him see 
it for himself. 

Mrs. Harrington 
{Puzzled) 
You are enigmatical? 

King 

{Acknowledging it and smiling) 
And so, the disappointment has — ? 

Mrs. Harrington 

Yes. He's been trying to forget in the only way 
most men think forgetfulness lies. 

King 

Yes, yes. Most men. 

Mrs. Harrington 

It's hurt me, of course. I haven't reproached him 
because I blame myself for his weakness. {He halts 



i6 EMBERS 

inquiringly.) Oh, never mind, why. I thought per- 
haps a little of this might — it does sometimes — that 
he might find himself unaided; but he hasn't. It's 
going deeper than I thought. He has given up all 
his work, and he was so ambitious. It's not a light 
young man's affair; it's — {She sighs deeply) and I 
was getting afraid of where it would end. I knew, 
every one knew, you were sailing, in a few days, on 
the Peace Commission. I thought — 

King 

( Understanding) 
I suppose your boy is fairly intelligent? 

Mrs. Harrington 
(Smiling) 
He is a college graduate. 

King 
That's the sort I want. He'll be open to facts. 

Mrs. Harrington 
(Eagerly) 
Then you will? 

King 
(Agreeing) 
If he— 



EMBERS 17 

Mrs. Harrington 

You must make him go. {Gratefully) How shall 
I ever — ? (King hushes her,) You know, we older 
people are very careless sometimes with this love. A 
wrong word may separate us from the children we 
parents foolishly grow to feel we own — ^may wreck 
a life. 

King 

Or make one. {They look at each other.) 

Mrs. Harrington 
Sh! He's coming. 

King 

To think it should be your boy who — 

Mrs. Harrington 

There's something in his better self which reminds 
me of you, as I knew you. (Jasper enters in Tuxedo. 
Overcoat on. He stops.) This is Mr. King. My 
boy, Jasper. 

Jasper 

{With great respect) 

It's an honor to meet you, sir. (King shakes hands, 
holds it fondly, indicates immediately he is pleased with 
Jasper. Jasper looks at mother: his eyes sink under 



i8 EMBERS 

King's close scrutiny. Pause.) I am sorry I must 
be going out, sir. I have an — 

King 

{Cordially) 

Sorry, too. Should have liked a chat. {Managing 
him subtly throughout) Heard you w^ere very clever. 

Jasper 
Who told you? Mother? 

Mrs. Harrington 
(Smiling) 
Mr. King knows all things. 

King 

You're promising. 

Jasper 

You're mistaken there, sir. 

King 

Why, it's vv^ritten all over you. {Looking him 
over) Good clear eyes. {They lower) Steady- 
straight-at-you-eyes. (Jasper faces him steadily) 
Strong face. Right kind of lines coming. {Feeling 
hands) Plenty of good, healthy blood. Of course, 
you're promising. {Eying him keenly as Jasper 
turns away) Sorry, though, you've got to go out. 



EMBERS 19 

Jasper 
{Almost in spite of himself) 
I can stay a few minutes. 

Mrs. Harrington 

{Delighted) 

Let me take your coat, dear. {She helps him off 
and looks at King significantly. Jasper tries to ap- 
pear at ease.) Is it too late for tea? 

Jasper 
Tea — huh ! 

King 

{Seeing decanter) 
Rather this, eh? 

Jasper 
{With a touch of abandon) 
Yes. 

Mrs. Harrington 

Let me. {She brings it down. King pours out 
some; uses siphon^ offers it to Jasper, who eyes mother 
and declines.) 

Jasper 

Oh, Fm not thirsty yet. 



20 EMBERS 

Mrs. Harrington 

Now you have met, isn't It too bad, Jasper, that 
Mr. King won't have time to really know you? 

King 

Oh, strange things happen. I like your son. I 
want to know him. I shall. 

Jasper 

Thanks, Mr. King, but — 

King 

I am leaving the country, you mean? True. 
{Abruptly) How would you like to go with me? 

Jasper 
{Astonished) 
I don't understand, sir. 

King 

It is a bit sudden, eh ? The cares of statesmen these 
days are not public calamities but private secretaries. 
One of mine, for instance, has too persistently wor- 
shiped King Alcohol — (Jasper starts) and so he does 
not sail. It's personality I want; you've got that. 
I'll gamble on your ability. Will you take his place? 

Mrs. Harrington 

{Joyed) 

Jasper, it's what you've said would be the first 
step to — 



EMBERS 21 

Jasper 
{Eagerly) 
Do you think I could do it? 

King 

I seldom make mistakes in people. Besides, it will 
be a great favor to me. 

Jasper 

Thanks. Thanks. I want to advance, — to be 
something — ; {Recalling) at least, I did. But I 
can't do it. I can't now. 

Mrs. Harrington 

{Persuasively) 

But, Jasper, one never knows what one can do 
till— 

King 

I'm willing to take the chance. 

Jasper 

{With conviction) 

That's what it would be: taking a chance. 
{Poignantly) No. I couldn't do it. I couldn't get 
my mind down to it. I'd always be thinking of 
something else. 



22 EMBERS 

King 

And then? 

Jasper 

{With bitter conviction) 

Then I'd do like the Secretary you've dismissed! 

{He sinks into chair abashed. Mrs. Har- 
rington controls herself and pats him. KiNG 
watches. There is a long pause.) 

Mrs. Harrington 

Dear, dear, I'm sure you wouldn't. {Defending 
him to King) Jasper has had a hard winter. And 
I've not been very well, until now, and he's been 
taking care of me, haven't you, boy? He's just a bit 
unstrung and excitable. The trip across will do you 
good, dear, and once you get interested, it will be 
easier. (JaspeR laughs softly.) 

King 

Work's the answer. Your mother was {Correct- 
ing slip) is right. 

Jasper 

{Rises slowly, deeply offended, and controlling anger) 

Was? That's it. Why you've come. Mother 
wrote you. You've talked it over. So it was all 
arranged to get me away to save me from going to 
the devil!! 



EMBERS 23 

Mrs. Harrington 
{Hurt) 
Jasper ! 

Jasper 

You've been trying to " handle " me. Isn't that 
it ? Mother ? 

Mrs. Harrington 
{Resigned) 
It was for your sake, my boy. 

Jasper 

{With quiet, yet sincere, indignation) 

You've made a mistake. I know what I'm doing. 
I could stop it. I don't want to. I'm " happier " 
this way. {He starts to pick up his coat.) 

Mrs. Harrington 
My boy! 

Jasper 

{With quiet dignity) 

I don't need outside help, mother. I won't have 
interference from strangers. 

Mrs. Harrington 
You mustn't say such things. 



24 EMBERS 

King 

{Taking Jasper firmly between shoulders) 

Jasper! You're no stranger to me. I know you 
better than you think. I have followed you for years 
— no matter how nor why. (Jasper surprised. Mrs. 
Harrington turns and crosses in growing wonder 
and realization.) I understand. You are feeling just 
as I did some twenty odd years ago. {Movement by 
Mrs. Harrington.) Like throwing all the best of 
you In the mud, with so many consoling companions. 
{With great sincerity) But you musn't. God, boy! 
you musn't! 

Jasper 

My mother has asked you — 

Mrs. Harrington 
{Quickly) 
Not to blame you; only to help you help yourself. 

Jasper 
She could have said these things. 

King 

{Detaining him) 

But you haven't quite considered her, have you? 
(Jasper's eyes sink guiltily.) So you must keep 
away from the mud for your own sake. (Jasper 
smiles.) And for one other. 



EMBERS 25 

Jasper 
{Halted) 
Another? Who? 

King 
{Simply) 
For the sake of the girl you love! 

Jasper 

{He stops in absolute astonishment that his secret 

is known. He turns to mother, but realizes 

that he has not told her) 

The girl I — who told? Nobody knew. {Putting 
on front) You're mistaken; there is nobody. Tell 
him, mother. {She puts her hand on his shoulder. 
He sees she knows. He hesitates, and becomes genu- 
inely and not peevishly ironical.) Well! what if 
there is? {Sarcastically to King) You know all 
things, ha, ha! {With deep feeling) What's she to 
me now? Do you know she led me on — tossed me 
over? I tell you, she's nothing to me. So why 
should I do anything for her sake when she doesn't 
care for me the way I want — not a bit — not a bit. 

{He sinks into the chair, overcome by his emo- 
tions. Mrs. Harrington suffers with him 
but tries to console. Pause.) 

King 

What has that got to do with it, Jasper? (Jasper 
laughs.) You love her, don't you? {Silence.) Has 



26 EMBERS 

she changed any? Is she any different now, any the 
less worthy herself, just because she didn't happen to 
care for youf Was it her fault she didn't? Can one 
help those things? {Pause.) Did she really "lead 
you on"? {Quickly) Now be fair to her! Didn't 
you just mistake her frank open companionship, her 
sympathy, her interest ? You are not the first. ( Mrs. 
Harrington understands.) 

Jasper 
{Quietly) 
You're laughing at me. 



Mrs. Harrington 



No— no. 



Jasper 
{Seriously) 
You think I'll get over it soon! 

Mrs. Harrington 
He has always cared. 

King 

It matters little how it is to be: it's real now, eh? 
Very real, and I can't laugh with others at an honest 
love — if the girl is worth while. {Measuring effect) 
But I don't think this girl is worth while — not from 
your actions. 



EMBERS 27 

Jasper 
(Rising ominously) 
What do you mean? 

King 

{With intention) 

You make me believe it's only your vanity that's 
hurt. That she's some frivolous, flirting coquette — 

Jasper 

{Firmly, as King has desired) 

Mother, he can't insult — {Turning, firmly) 
Please don't say anything against her, Mr. King. 

Kjng 

{Bluntly) 

Have I said anything w^orse than you have been 
doing against her? (Jasper halts. After a pause 
King continues with great tenderness and persuasion. 
Mrs. Harrington held.) Listen, Jasper, haven't 
you been trying to forget vi^hen it might be more 
worthy to remember her? You've been denying her 
w^orth to yourself v^^hen you should be glorying that 
you've seen it, eh? You've been trying to make the 
best of her a derision, haven't you? When to you 
it should be an inspiration ajid an aspiration. Now, 
shouldn't it? Think. Haven't you begun to smirch 



^8 EMBERS 

her white gown a little — dragging it with you through 
the soiled hours, — ^when you should be keeping it your 
emblem of purity and goodness. Can't you see you've 
begun to wallow in the mud instead of bending your 
knees and thanking God a worth-while woman has 
come into your life! (Pause.) And you say I'm in- 
sulting her. What have you begun to do? What 
have you been doing? 

(Jasper turns, realizes^ and looks before him, 
silent. Mrs. Harrington gazes long at 
King. They stand on either side of Jasper. 
King continues more lightly.) 

Come, come — you're not a wreck, are you? But 
don't you see a preachy old man of the world is trying 
to help you work this out to your own profit? Can't 
you understand if you've found a woman who is 
worth your love, you are richer? You may not be 
able to be faithful to your ideal through the hot years 
of youth, but it is at least something to be working 
towards. And, Jasper, if some men keep decent it is 
because they wish to be what the best women think 
them. 

Jasper 
And where Is the reward? 

King 
If one seeks rewards they only lie within one's self. 



EMBERS 29 

Jasper 

{Not convinced) 

That's one of those life-theories that sound well 
but can't be lived. 



Mrs. Harrington 
(Hurt) 



Jasper ! 



King 

{Smiling) 

That's right; you're in the mood to doubt as I am 
to convince. {Pause.) Jasper, what I have told you 
has not been a theory. {Sacredly) It's been a — a 
practice ! 

(Jasper bows. Mrs. Harrington glances 
quickly at King, and throughout the following 
shows clearly her growing realization of how 
much she has meant to him during the years.) 

Mrs. Harrington 
You musn't — 

King 

{Simply and slowly) 

It's not too tragic to tell you now. It's been the 
most beautiful thing in life. I was about your age 



30 EMBERS 

when I knew her first. She became all that the 
woman you care for is to you. She didn't love me 
either. {Finally without bitterness) That was all. 
But she'd always been fair to me throughout. You 
see our stories are alike somewhat, eh? With me, 
there was no one before and no one since. (Mrs. 
Harrington conceals her tears.) She was no mere 
illusion, either. {With great conviction) No: she 
was what men call an ideal. I measured all by her. 
Others came. Oh! the flesh was not always true, 
perhaps because the world forgives the humanity in 
us men; but the best in me was: always reaching to 
what I knew she would ask of me, if she had cared. 
So all the empty years, the thought of her has been 
leading me on. I declined this easy offer and accepted 
that difficult task, because, when in doubt, I went to 
a few letters, a stolen, faded picture in a locket, and 
some crushed flowers — they kept her clearly before 
me; they told me somehow the right thing to do. I 
owe all to her. It's been hard at times, but I am 
grateful that I could even love her purely without 
hope. {Half looking toward Mrs. Harrington) 
That was the great resolve hidden from everybody: 
to be worthy of my own love for her! 

Jasper 
{Murmuring reverently) 

Mr. King! 

King 
It's not the way of the world, Jasper. Most people 
wince and forget. True. But I want you to know 



EMBERS 31 

this. You. To start right and to see it can be done 
if one loves enough and only once. 

{Pause, Jasper very silent, his head bowed. 
King looks at Mrs. Harrington, the longing 
of years there. She is spellbound. A curious 
new light breaks through her tear-stained eyes. 
She is bewilderedj confused with her own emo- 
tions, hesitates, turns, crosses softly, and sits by 
the fire, hiding her face. A sob is heard. 
Pause and silence. Mrs. Harrington ab- 
sently pokes the dying embers into a new blaze. 
The clock strikes the half hour. The door 
softly opens, and Maid stands there.) 

Maid 

Excuse me, Mr. Jasper, the 'phone. 

Jasper 
( Uninterested) 
Who Is it? 

Maid 
He said you'd know who? He's been waiting at — 

Jasper 

(Helplessly) 
Mother — 

Mrs. Harrington 
Tell him Mr. Jasper will not come to-night. 



32 EMBERS 

Jasper 

Nor to-morrow. (Maid bows and exits, closing 
door, Jasper rises.) Mr. King, there's one thing 
I'd like to ask you. Did she ever know? 

Mrs. Harrington 
{Quickly) 
You musn't ask that, Jasper. 

King 

She learned too late. 

Jasper 
{With vigorous determination) 
Mother, I'll write Ethel, and tell her now, that I — 

Mrs. Harrington 

{For King) 

Yes, do. A woman ought to know that she means 
something to a man. For then, perhaps in her own 
little life she would try to be more what he thinks 
her. • 

Jasper 
I'll do it now. You'll wait here for me, Mr. King? 



EMBERS 33 

King 
(Businesslike) 
You will sail with me? 

Jasper 
When do you leave? 

King 
Wednesday. Ten. Campania. 

Jasper 
( Turning) 
But, mother — ? 

Mrs. Harrington 
I'll help you get ready, my boy. 

Jasper 

I shouldn't go, mother. We've been so much to- 
gether, you and I, — 

Mrs. Harrington 

{Kisses him tenderly) 

I've had you longer than most mothers. I've al- 
ways been waiting for this time of parting. I am 
ready. 



34 EMBERS 

Jasper 
(Hesitating) 
But oughtn't I — 

Mrs. Harrington 

{With deep feeling) 

You should not be held by false obligations. You 
owe nothing to me. I have your love. What you 
will make of yourself, by yourself, will be my reward 
for the care. Go, my boy: I shall miss you: but I 
shall not regret. You have your life to live and make. 
No matter what happens, you will always have my 
faith, my understanding, and my love. (King has 
controlled himself with difficulty.) 

Jasper 

Mr. King, it must have been hard for you to tell 
me about — Believe me, I appreciate it, and I'll try 
to be worthy of your confidence, mother's faith, and — 
the other one. {Good-naturedly) I don't know so 
very much about you, sir — but mother does. I'll get 
her to tell me. Besides, she's got hundreds of clip- 
pings and things about your career and speeches. I'll 
run through them with her. I never could see why 
she kept them. 

{He exits, leaving door open. The two are 
alone, and step nearer each other, with sup- 
pressed emotion. They speak quietly so that 
Jasper will not hear through open door; thus, 
still keeping him in scene.) 



EMBERS 35 

Mrs. Harrington 



What can I say? 



King 



Nothing. You should never have known but for 
the boy. 

Mrs. Harrington 
He has brought us together — again. 

King 

Just to say good-by? (Silence.) Is it too late? 
(She looks at him in doubt.) I forgot: you never 
loved me! 

Mrs. Harrington 

(Half dreamingly) 

Seeing you again, hearing you speak this way, re- 
calls something I believe I felt for some one, some 
dream — long ago. {She is puzzled, looks into his 
eyes, and shakes her head kindly.) But you've wor- 
shiped a false ideal of me all these years. 

King 
I have seen you again — as a mother. I know. 

Mrs. Harrington 

You don't know. I have done the unpardonable 
in your eyes. I am not the woman you think me — 



36 EMBERS 

nor mother. {With an effort) I told you I couldn't 
reproach Jasper in all this, because I knew I was to 
blame for his weakness. Oh, I love him so; but I 
wasn't fair to him — to his character at the start — 
because — ^because my boy was born of a loveless mar- 
riage. {Pause: Looking into his eyes.) You never 
thought your ideal woman would — ? 

Kjng 
No. 

Mrs. Harrington 

{Helplessly) 

You see. {Pause. She loses control of her surg- 
ing emotion^ and becomes unnaturally agitated.) I 
don't understand myself to-night — here {Hand on 
heart) — but I'm wondering what feeling makes me 
call for you, Mason, to help him I love most!! 

{He starts, comes closer, as though suppressing 
a new hope.) 

King 

You've shown me we grow by the way we accept 
consequences. In some strange, difFerent way than 
I thought, you have become even more perfect than 
I knew you were. Listen, Ruth. 

{He moves still closer. Jasper re-enters with 
a new energy. They look at one another. 
Jasper halts, and finishes tearing up a letter. 



EMBERS 37 

Mrs. Harrington makes a motion of fear 
and uncertainty that perhaps he may not be so 
strong as he had previously indicated.) 



Jasper 

I didn't tell you how she'd written me — that she'd 
heard what I was doing — that she was hurt and sorry 
'cause I hadn't been strong. Well, I've just been 
thinking I'm pretty much of a coward to be writing. 
I'm not writing: I'm going to see her, to tell her 
what I'm going to do. It won't be easy, but I shan't 
let her suffer on my account. 



Mrs. Harrington 
{Joyed) 
Jasper ! 

King 

Good. I'll give you a lift on the way. 

Jasper 

{Has crossed and thrown up the shade. Moonlight 
streams in) 

Your cab is there! I'll be back soon, mother. 
{He takes up coat, and exits, leaving door open.) 



38 EMBERS 

Mrs. Harrington 

{Greatly joyed) 

Now I am sure of him — as I have always been 
of you. 

{He offers his hand in parting: she slowly 
takes it. They show in a quiet, subdued man- 
ner that it is the first time their hands have 
touched in years.) 

Kjng 

Good-by. 

Mrs. Harrington 
{Quietly) 
For a time? 

King 

{Significantly) 

We'll put it that way. 

{They look into each others eyes. Then he 
stiffens up; controlling himself, and exits, clos- 
ing door between them. Mrs. Harrington 
leans back against it. The moonlight from 
the window floods the door and shows upon 
her face a look of mingled hope and joy, in- 
definitely touched with a sense of mystery.) 



EMBERS 39 

Mrs. Harrington 

I wonder — if I — {Her hand steals to her heart) 
-I wonder. 

{She stands there silent. The outer door 
closes. Then she smiles.) 



VERY SLOW CURTAIN 



THE FAILURES 



THE PEOPLE 

The Man, an Artist. 
The Woman. 

SCENE 
The parlatorio of a small apartment in Rome. 



THE FAILURES* 

yf DOORWAY from the stairs without opens 
^~m upon a simple little room. The lace-cur- 
-^ -^ tained windows on one side conceal a haU 
cony from which, in the distance, the Via Bondinelli 
may be seen. Directly opposite these windows there 
is a fireplace above which rests an odd mirror with 
painted putti enfolding it. A door, hidden by a faded, 
beaded curtain, leading into the bedroom, is near this. 
A sofa-chair by the coal-Boulet fire; some smaller 
chairs and a table complete the furnishings. The 
room has not taken on a personal note: it seems de- 
tached from whatever could happen in it — just a place. 
The sun is burning through the windows, and, as the 
play proceeds, it glows into a dull red, finally fading 
while the fire alone tints the room more and more 
gently. 

The Woman is seated by the window, looking 
intently through the lace curtains. She is evidently 
awaiting somebody. She is about thirty, dark, with 
a suggestion of deep capabilities and little will. Her 
charm is more compelling than her actual beauty, 

♦Copyright, 1911, by George Middleton. All rights 
reserved. 

43 



44 THE FAILURES 

Upon her face rests a vague suspense. She is in deep 
mourning. 

There is a long pause: suddenly her face lights up; 
she rises, watches anxiously a moment, then relaxes — 
disappointed. In her hand she holds a crumpled tel- 
egram, which she smooths out and rereads. The 
clock slowly strikes five, and she crosses to it, indicat- 
ing her expected visitor is late. She stands before the 
fire a second, kisses the telegram, puts it in her dress — 
recrosses to the window again slowly. In a few sec- 
onds her sharp intake of breath shows some one is 
coming. She watches, fascinated, yet strangely puz- 
zled. She goes up to the door and leaves it open. 
Then she controls herself, comes down to the fire, 
turns and waits. After another pause The Man 
enters. He sees her: she gives a start, stopped appar- 
ently by his changed appearance. He slowly closes 
the door behind him, and stands there. They are 
alone and silent, and controlled. 

The Man is tall, thin, eyes deep-set and yearning, 
with features once clear-cut, now blurred subtly. He 
is a man of halted potentials; he suggests a locked 
tragedy. 



You are late. 



The Woman 

The Man 
{After a pause) 



Yes. 



THE FAILURES 45 

The Woman 
(Slowly also) 
You never were late. 

The Man 
Five years change. 

The Woman 

Some of us. {Looking at him) It has you — 
greatly. 

The Man 

Yes, greatly. 

The Woman 
I have come a long way across the seas to your city. 

The Man 
(Simply) 
I have never left it. 

The Woman 

I knew you were waiting. (His face shades a bit 
unnoticed.) Do you understand why I am here — 
now? 

The Man 

(Calmly) 

Your husband is dead! 



46 THE FAILURES 

The Woman 



(Surprised) 



You knew? 



The Man 
That could be the only reason. 

The Woman 

It was a few months ago — at home. If he had 
been younger he might have — ^but he suffered little. 
I waited only as long as was necessary afterwards. 
I managed to get this same apartment. It hasn't 
changed so very much with the years, has it? 

(They look about. He seems to linger on the 
objects: finally his eye rests upon the sofa- 
chair: she follows his gaze.) 

The Man 
Even that. 

The Woman 

{Smiles fondly in recollection) 

Yes: where you read to me so often those few 
months we were alone and happy. To me it seems 
like yesterday — 

The Man 

To you, yes. {He half shrugs his shoulders and 
arouses himself from a settling mood.) So you have 
sent for me at last. 



THE FAILURES 47 

The Woman 
{Happily) 
As soon as I arrived. 

The Man 
{Sharply) 
Why? 

The Woman 
{With exhilaration) 
Why? — Because now I am free. 

The Man 
{With measured effect) 
But what has that to do with me? 

The Woman 
{Simply) 
I have come to marry you. 

{They gaze at each other but do not move 
nearer.) 

The Man 

Haven't we both seen that marriage can keep apart 
those who love? Perhaps I have grown afraid of its 
power. 



48 THE FAILURES 

The Woman 

So have I. (She shudders.) Yes; it is terrible 
when love is dead. I must not think of those years: 
they were frightful. (She comes closer.) But, dear, 
it is different with us; you and I who have known 
love, who do. 

The Man 

It is too late with you and me — too late. 

The Woman 
(Scarcely realizing) 
Too late? (Intuitively) There is somebody else? 

The Man 

No. That problem was saved me: one doesn't 
suffer a second time willingly. 

The Woman 

Then, then — oh, no : it can't be ; you — ^you no longer 
love me? 

The Man 

Say rather I have learned really to know you dur- 
ing the absence, and that has made things different. 

The Woman 
Diiferent? 



THE FAILURES 49 

The Man 
You are not what I thought you: you must pass — 

The Woman 

(Sinking in chair , dazed) 

After all that, I must pass! {Losing control) 
Then why did you let me see you again? Why did 
you come here in this room of ours? Why didn't you 
write me? Anything else. 

The Man 

{With cold incisiveness) 

Because I'm not the coward to dodge a difficult 
situation. It concerns your life. You have a right 
to demand and receive an explanation. I can't let 
you be tortured, as I was, through inference and im- 
agination. / want to be fair — if that is ever possible 
between men and women. 

The Woman 

It's not a time to be proud: I love you too much. 
{He is unmoved.) To-day, I wanted only to feel: 
now you make me think. It's hard when I expected — 
but, you see, I'm — I'm calm. {She soon masters her- 
self completely,) You say you have learned to know 
me during the absence. How? Has one word passed 
between us? 



50 THE FAILURES 

The Man 
That was our agreement with him. 

The Woman 

Yet you must have felt the messages I sent you 
every hour: you never left me for a moment. You 
knew me as no man ever knew me. 

The Man 

You knew love for the first time: you revealed 
yourself — that's all. 

The Woman 
(Leaning forward) 
And you did love that woman who was? 

The Man 
Yes, — to the dregs. 

The Woman 

(Eagerly) 

Then how, hozv have I changed? Tell me one 
single fact to show I am different than you thought 
me! 

The Man 

There is only one fact since you ask it: you stayed 
with him: you continued to wear his name and his 
ring but you loved another man. 



THE FAILURES 51 

The Woman 

So that was It. {She puts her hands silently before 
her face,) 

The Man 

You seem to forget the darkness that was closing 
in upon your married life before I came: the staring 
of your two naked egos, the seeing each a stranger, 
the boredom, the starved hours, the reach toward me 
to save you. 

The Woman 

{Interrupting) 

No, no, one never forgets. I knew my own He, 
only he loved me in spite of all. What else could we 
have done, after we told him about ourselves? 

The Man 

You forget, too, I gave you the strength to stay 
with him the time he demanded to test our love by 
separation — before he would let you go " easily." 

The Woman 

Yes. You said : " We must not build our happiness 
upon a broken life." And my crime was in being 
true to the strength you had given me. 

The Man 

{Cynically) 
Not exactly. 



52 THE FAILURES 

The Woman 
What then? 

The Man 
(Hesitating) 
Something happened to me. 

The Woman 
It's no time to hesitate. Go on. 

The Man 

When you left here I knew I was loved for the 
first time. I had entered into my man's inheritance; 
nothing before had counted: through you I had 
touched the rim of life, and it seemed to whirl me 
over the seas and mountains. I had told you love 
would summon my forces with the brush to their full- 
est expresion, for in myself I desired the mere con- 
sciousness that you loved me to drive me on to all 
that you had expected of me. 

The Woman 

(Who eagerly followed his words) 

Yes, yes; you know I sought it, too. — ^Ah, how 
your words sweep me back! Dear, don't you know 
I could not have left you then, at all if I had not 
thought that? 



THE FAILURES 53 

The Man 

{Cynically) 

Couldn't you? I wonder. {She is hurt by his 
doubt.) But listen: I spiritualized everything to keep 
me strong in parting; I think I half believed it, too, 
till you had actually gone. And then — 

The Woman 
Then? 

The Man 

Then I saw I couldn't exist on the heights alone: 
the air was too rare, and I had to come down into 
the valleys where the world sleeps and lives. I had 
misread myself. It wasn't only spirit: there was 
something more insistent than the hope of what might 
be in time: it was the sharp cry of the moment. {He 
pauses.) I loved you too — humanly. 

The Woman 
( Unabashed) 
I know. I know. {Long pause.) Go on. 

The Man 

And with the months there was that cry for you, 
for the sound of your voice, the touch of your fingers 
on my arm, the perfume which meant you — . 



54 THE FAILURES 

The Woman 
{Moved) 
I met you everywhere. 

The Man 

I tried to forget by thinking of your belief in my 
work. But, what were my pictures when my hand 
shook with the beat of my blood? Then, I ceased 
to see you as a force: it was only the woman who 
haunted me {Bitterly) and always — always like a 
sharp dagger thrust I would realize she was with 
another man! 

The Woman 

{Quickly) 

Whom I did not love, to whom I could give 
nothing. 

The Man 

But you were with him! That was the grinding 
edge. He could see you, touch you, be kind to you. 

The Woman 

He saw only surfaces: all the rest had ceased before 
you came. 

The Man 
(Big) 
But you were with him! 



THE FAILURES 55 

The Woman 
(Feebly) 
Couldn't you remember I loved you ? 

The Man 

I tried. If It had been only spirit I could have 
tucked it away tenderly in lavender and lace, and 
kept it apart from the humanity in and about me. 
But it wasn't: it\ was love I was not ashamed of — as 
It <^hould be between man and woman — with the 
spirit there, high and strong, yet rooted below in the 
facts of life! 

The Woman 

How I understand! How you must have suffered! 
(Almost inaudibly) It was the same with me. 

The Man 

(Emphatically) 

But, in spite of everything, I was faithful to what 
you wished, until — 

The Woman 
(Breathlessly) 
Until- 

The Man 

One thought cut away all my defenses: it was that 
which cheapened you in my eyes. 



56 THE FAILURES 

The Woman 
(Cut) 
Cheapened? Oh — not that. 

The Man 

{Sloivly) 

Yes; and when you became less, love somehow 
seemed too exacting and {Very bitterly) there was 
nothing to keep me stronger than the men about me. 

The Woman 

( Understanding) 

I have tried never to think of those others who 
might — (Turning aside and almost whispering) 
But I knew you were a man. Oh, don't bring their 
shadows here. 

The Man 

(Hesitating) 

I am making you suffer too much. I can't soften 
the facts. Shall I go on? 

The Woman 

Yes: I am used to suffering. It is best you finish. 
(She wipes her eyes.) What — what was it I did to 
cheapen love? 



THE FAILURES 57 

The Man 

As I said: you stayed with him. 

The Woman 
{Almost fiercely) 
Do you think that was easy? 

The Man 

{Strongly) 

Perhaps it was easier than coming to me! 

{She is stunned J quivers^ and turns away silent. 
She almost staggers to a chair, and sits down 
with head bowed: he tries to control his bit- 
terness, but it escapes more and more in spite 
of him.) 

I waited for him to let you go willingly, to give you 
your promised chance for happiness. But as the 
alloted time passed by and nothing happened, my 
imagination pictured the possibilities of the situation. 
I knew how you could deceive, not always to protect 
yourself but to save others. Were you saving him — 
making It entirely tolerable? Were you concealing 
your deeper life completely, and tricking him with an 
affected happiness? Why did you go on as in the 
past? Was he holding you by Pity? If for his love 
he wouldn't do anything, why didn't you for yours? 



58 THE FAILURES 

The Woman 
(Confused) 
Me? But — but, I couldn't hurt him! 

The Man 

I knew your capacity for suffering, and guessed you 
were suffering, but was that all love had grown 
to mean to you — an excuse for suffering? Were you, 
too, luxuriating, like so many other women, in your 
self-inflicted martyrdom and sacrifice, forgetting that 
I — the man you loved — ^was with you on the altar? 
Were you sheltering your Inactivity beneath spiritual 
sophistries — ^jagged, rusty, death-bearing ideals of duty, 
pity, and the like — 

The Woman 
(Trying to interrupt him throughout) 
Stop — stop — ! 

The Man 

— or were you willingly shirking the responsibilities 
and the obligations to the love you had Inspired? — 
Don't you see how the uncertainty almost drove me 
mad? 

The Woman 

(Primitively) 

Then why didn't you come take me? — ^Why? 
Why? 



THE FAILURES 59 

The Man 

Because it was your place to find the impulse from 
within yourself. {She is confused.) When you 
didn'tj I saw you were a moral coward, a weak, con- 
ventional woman who hadn't the courage to reach out 
and take her happiness. {With vehemence) You 
stayed on in the house with a man you did not love. 
That's what destroyed everything in me — for I de- 
spised you. 

The Woman 

{Crushed) 

But, didn't you understand? Couldn't you some- 
how? Oh—! 

The Man 
{With slow contempt) 
Yes, I understood : it was the line of least resistance. 

The Woman 
{Desperately defending herself) 
No! No! 

The Man 
{Pressing the point) 
It was so much easier to be conventional, 



6o THE FAILURES 

The Woman 
I knew you were waiting for me. I knew — 

The Man 

But you forgot how tired one's arms could be, hold- 
ing them out endlessly. (Slowly) You preferred to ac- 
cept the conventional protection of his name, because 
you feared the parched places you must cross to come to 
me; you dreaded the peering eyes, the smirch of lips, 
the shrug of shoulders. So you mechanically kept 
by his side, starving him, starving yourself, and starv- 
ing me. But now — now that his protection is gone — 
It is easy to come! — It Is no effort; you need my pro- 
tection. Death offers the gift, not you. But you are 
conventional to the end; for you even come to the 
man you love wearing the mourning weeds of him 
who stood between ! — 

(She grasps quickly at her dress, then with a 
deep moan sinks upon the sofa-chair amid 
stifled sobs. A very long pause follows. He 
stands looking at her, betraying only bitterness.) 

The Woman 

(Completely broken) 

Oh — what a miserable failure I am. How you 
make me see it. You've torn off everything. God! — 
and — and it's all true — true! I was a coward. I 
am. 



THE FAILURES 6i 

The Man 
{Nearer) 
There may have been things I did not know. 

The Woman 
{As though honest with herself for the first time) 

They wouldn't alter. No: it's all true and more. 

never could be strong alone. With you I felt 
capable of anything, but away, alone — no — no. I 
couldn't face what would have to be gone through. 
I couldn't take that first step. The newspapers, the 
gossip — everything. I didn't dare move from his pro- 
tection — for he did protect me — not {With self -dis- 
gust) not because he loved me — oh — that's the worst 
of it. That all ceased in him. 

The Man 
When he thought I had passed ! How like us men ! 

The Woman 

Yes. He was conventional, too. He merely 
dreaded the talk — that — and nothing else. I knew it 
and despised him. But he was kind in his way. 
That's what we bartered these years: that was our 
marriage. I could not shake myself free from the 
wall that held me. Somebody has alwaj^s taken care 
of me. That's why I married him when I was left 
alone as a girl. That's why I come to you. Don't 



62 THE FAILURES 

stop me. It's all true. I did fear the parched places 
and I knew in my heart that only when he had — could 
I ever come. {She shudders and struggles with her 
sobs.) 

The Man 

{After eying her: a little more softly) 

Forgive me. If I had been stronger I would have 
spared you this — lied to you somehow, and made it 
easier. It seems like dynamiting a butterfly. But 
I've been thinking these phrases and they just came 
out. Love failed me and I failed love. I'm not 
strong any more. I was afraid in the old days you 
expected too much from me. Good-by. 

{He starts to go: she rises, halting him, at the 
strange tenderness in his voice,) 

The Woman 

Yes. I did expect too much from you. I was 
weak: I could suffer, yet could not do for love. But 
those years have gone: I can offer no defense save 
that through them all I did not know I was harming 
you. I thought you were strong and would go 
grandly on to your destiny! But I see you and your 
work needed me. That is harder for me than all 
you have said: not only do I fall beneath your ideal 
of me but the love I inspired in you failed to keep 
you "big." 



THE FAILURES 63 

The Man 
(Humbly) 



Yes. 



The Woman 

{She comes closer to him) 

You have blamed me with the selfishness that only- 
lies in pent-up bitterness, and you have forgotten what 
you have done to me. Look at me. Straight in the 
eyes. {He reluctantly does so; she continues re- 
proachfully) What have you done with all those 
dreams you said my coming had brought you? 
What have you done with all the ambitions which I 
aroused? Where are the pictures with the soul of 
the woman you loved in them? Oh! What have 
you done with your own love for me? 

The Man 

Nothing, nothing. That's the other reason why 
it's too late. You're worthy of pity: I am not even 
worthy of that. Now we both understand. 

The Woman 
{Shaking her head sadly) 
It is as though a great dream lay broken between 



us- 



The Man 
Yes, I feel it, too. Neither of us did anything! 



64 THE FAILURES 

The Woman 

( Slowly ) 

Two failures! Where love had so much to offer. 
Two failures! 

The Man 

There are three. Your husband failed also. In 
his strength while he loved you, he might have made 
us both ashamed. 

The Woman 

And ever afterward have stood between. {The 
light outside is gone. Only the fire leaps and colors 
them. There is another long pause.) How dark it 
has become. 

The Man 
I must be going out into the blackness again. 

The Woman 
Yes. I also, later. 

The Man 

(Lingers) 

Too bad — too bad. When love might have done 
so much. How we have abused it — we three. I sup- 
pose we learn to find our true value in loving. Oh! 



THE FAILURES 65 

The shame in finding so much alloy. Love is only for 
the strong; it breaks the others. 



The Woman 
(Quickly) 

No — you're wrong. Does love lie only in strength? 
(She comes to him.) Doesn't love ever come to the 
:ired and weak? Can't one be just a plain, helpless 
woman craving protection of the man, who, in turn, 
needs a bosom for his tired head? Dear One, I have 
no pride left. I am that weak and lonely woman: 
you are that tired man. We have nobody else. Be- 
cause you failed me, my love is no less. {With pene- 
tration) Are you so sure your love for me is dead? 

The Man 
I am dead inside. 

The Woman 

{Quickly) 

Are you? Are you? I'm not. Fm proud of the 
life that lies calling beneath the self-pity, beneath the 
woman's weakness and failure. {Coming very close 
and holding his hands.) Don't you know all these 
years, I, too, have held the dream of you close — close 
to me — and my call has been as strong as yours. 



66 THE FAILURES 

The Man 
{Bitterly) 

Then there was something — ^wlth him? {She pro- 
tests as he turns away.) Of course not. There are 
some things a woman would always lie about to an- 
other man! 

The Woman 

{Catching the jealous note in his voice, she 

eagerly puts her hand on his shoulder; 

turning him to her. He tries to 

speak but is swept to passion 

by the touch.) 

Dearest, you still love me. 

The Man 

{Half struggling away) 

No. I tell you — it's over — dead — tossed in the 
rubbish heap. 

The Woman 

{Vibrantly) 

This has always been betv/een us: this has been 
alive all these years, and I'm not ashamed either. 

The Man 
No! No! 



THE FAILURES 67 

The Woman 

We can't escape: we've been blind to-day. Listen, 
I love you, I love you, and you love me. 

The Man 
{Trying to free himself) 
It's dead. No ; no. 

The Woman 

You do! You do! Your anger tells me so; your 
cruelty, the bitterness, and the hurt in your heart cries 
it. If I were meant to pass, you would not have 
come. Kiss me: you are afraid to kiss me — 

{He stands J looking at her, caught by his own 
feelings. They are still a moment; then his 
head lowers. They kiss. She falls back, half 
swooning J in his arms.) 

The Man 

Dearest. Dearest. {With tenderness) Dearest! — 

{He takes her to the sofa-chair j and puts her 
upon it. He holds her hands j and sits on the 
rug beside her. She opens her eyes.) 

The Woman 

{Faintly) 

Ah! The tenderness of you, too. You will pro- 
tect me — watch over me. I know. 



68 THE FAILURES 

The Man 

Yes, yes — for always now. I love you. — It's 
stronger, 

{He lowers his head; she feels his tears and 
kisses on her hands. She leans over him.) 

SLOW CURTAIN 



THE GARGOYLE 

A STUDY OF A TEMPERAMENT 



THE PEOPLE 

Craig Arliss, a novelist 
Vaughan Blakeslee, a wanderer 



SCENE 
A house in the suburbs. 



THE GARGOYLE* 

^ # f HE summer moonlight flowing through a large 
m French balcony window at the right discloses 

the dim outlines of a curious, clover-shaped 
studio. A door, which one learns opens upon a stair- 
way, is faintly seen at the back. The light from a 
lamp upon a mantelpiece near a bedroom door, at the 
leftj suggests more clearly the interesting collection of 
prints and curios placed along the wall. Some book- 
cases are noticed amid the strange melange of tasteful 
if somewhat eccentric furniture. At a table near the 
window, Arliss is seated writing persistently. His 
cigar has gone out, and as he pauses to relight it, one 
observes that he is tall, almost emaciated, and past 
the meridian of life. His dark, deep-set, inquiring 
eyes seem the only thing alive about his sallow, ascetic 
face. His thin, sensitive lips are bloodless through 
continual compression, and his high distinguished fore- 
head is lined by a heavy shock of black hair. When 
he speaks it is obvious he phrases self-consciously. 
As he resumes writing, it is seen that his fingers are 
long and nervous, really conscious of the things they 
touch. He continues under apparent inspiration for 
some time; the clock striking four finally interrupts 
him. He looks up, realizing it is late. He glances 

* Copyright, 1911, by George Middleton. All rights re- 
served. 

71 



72 THE GARGOYLE 

out of the window as though awaiting somebody , looks 
up at a stone gargoyle projecting outside, half grunts 
to himself J then searches among his papers and finds 
a telegram which he rereads for reassurance. The 
faint ring of a bell is heard. He starts up' toward 
the door at the back, but hesitates and goes to the 
window instead. 

Arliss 
{Calling out) 

Vaughan! Vaughan! At last! Wait; I'll throw 
the key. An old habit, eh? {He takes a key off the 
table and throws it from the window.) There, right 
before you. You haven't forgotten the trick of that 
door? {He takes the lamp from the table and goes 
up to the door at the back, opening it, and stepping 
outside on the stairs* He holds the lamp above him.) 
Close it. Be careful of that turn. Seventh step. 
I'm always stumbling over it myself. 

{A slight pause. Arliss comes into the room 
as Vaughan Blakeslee enters. Arliss lifts 
the lamp high, and the two men face each other 
in its light. Another pause. 

Vaughan Blakeslee, still in his early thir- 
ties, of handsome if somewhat underlined 
features, gives indication, through a certain 
marked unkemptness, of the same native refine- 
ment of birth and sensibilities. 

Arliss calmly offers his hand. Vaughan does 
not take it.) 



THE GARGOYLE 73 

Vaughan 
We are alone? 

Arliss 
Quite. 

Vaughan 
{Still at the door) 
The servants? 

Arliss 

Are evils I am compelled to tolerate only In the day- 
time. (Vaughan sighs in relief, and enters the 
room. Arliss closes the door and comes down slowly 
to the telegram.) You said it was something "im- 
portant." 

Vaughan 
I came straight from the train. 

Arliss 

Oh, don't apologize! I'm a night owl. I've been 
working. {Referring to manuscript.) Poor crea- 
tures! They're having a hard time . . . Oh, par- 
don, and your luggage? 

Vaughan 
I've brought none. I'm not going to stay. 



74 THE GARGOYLE 

Arliss 

{Enigmatically ) 

Then you haven't reached the bottom yet. {Pause.) 
I never persuade. 

Vaughan 
I hardly think you will be able to, this time. 

Arliss 

Your room has always been waiting for you these — > 
let me see — it's two years, isn't it? 

Vaughan 
In time, yes. 

Arliss 

Whenever you are ready you can take up your 
old life. 

Vaughan 

My old life, ha! ha! I'd have to be the same per- 
son I was, wouldn't I? 

Arliss 

I accept the correction. Your new life dating from 
to-day. 



THE GARGOYLE 75 

Vaughan 
{Sarcastically) 
Have you advice to give me about that, too? 

Arliss 

Not precisely; but I might hazard a guess, though, 
that when you are ready you should accept Old Gam- 
brill's offer. 

Vaughan 

{Surprised) 

That is still open to me? Even after these last two 
years ? 

Arliss 
{Lighting a cigar) 
Certainly. Old Gambrill understands, too. 

Vaughan 
Understands ? 

Arliss 
Yes. 

Vaughan 
( Grimly ) 
I wonder. {He walks up and down,) 



76 THE GARGOYLE 

Arliss 

Maturity is only mental vanity, eh? But this Is 
a good chance for you, Vaughan. I'm not much on 
business affairs, yet I think your father would have 
approved. It's — I have It here; I only remember 
moods, never facts. {He takes up a memorandum.) 
Twenty-five hundred at the start — six months' travel 
— 'rikshas, mules, and so forth — hard work, but full 
of color, I should think — stimulating, shoulder-rub- 
bing — 

Vaughan 
(Crossing close to him) 
Do you know where I've come from? 

Arliss 

Yes. From the Devil. You went to shake his 
hand; he looked at your palm, smiled, shook his head, 
and regretfully sent you back to earth. 

Vaughan 
(Bitingiy) 
Something made me come to you. 

Arliss 

(Covertly watching the younger man, measuring 
him, and purposely drawing him out) 

I have been expecting you for many weeks. 



THE GARGOYLE 77 

Vaughan 

I said nothing about coming in my letters. You 
received them all? 

Arliss 

Every one of them. It was good of you to number 
them as I suggested. In spite of your bad hand- 
writing, I followed you in great detail day by day. 

Vaughan 
Why didn't you answer them? 

Arliss 
I sent my card and a check. 

Vaughan 
Do you know why I took your money? 

Arliss 
The answer is obvious. 

Vaughan 
I took it because I despised you. 

Arliss 
That's splendid psychology. 



78 THE GARGOYLE 

Vaughan 

Oh, you can sneer at me now. But how could you 
— how could you keep sending it to me? How could 
you let me go on and on — 

Arliss 

{Calmly) 

What you were doing interested me. I was always 
glad to hear. 

Vaughan 
Glad? 

Arliss 

Yes. Even after your letters came, so eagerly 
awaited, I sharpened my pleasure by placing them on 
the bookcase — there. All day they would cry out to 
me, but never till night did I release their tumbling 
words. Then, under the black mantle, I lived with 
you gloriously through it all. For to me your letters 
meant experience — sensation. 

Vaughan 
So that was why you did it ? 

ArlIss 

Alone in my chair I felt the quick rush of your 
life. My lips bled with your wine, my ears burned 
with your music, and the rouge of your women rubbed 
my cheeks. 



THE GARGOYLE 79 

Vaughan 

{Bitterly) 

And / paid. / lived It. / suffered — while you sat 
comfortably alone in your chair. Ha! ha! 

Arliss 
{Half to himself) 
That was the only way I could do it. 

Vaughan 

So I earned the money you sent me. I was ex- 
periencing for you. I was burning the wick that you 
might see. I was material — copy. Oh, I might have 
guessed, for I heard you say once : " Creation sprang 
from suffering." 

Arliss 

And you very rightly deduce it is generally some- 
body else who pays. We artists who justify ourselves 
forget that. 

Vaughan 

I've paid long enough. I didn't come to take up my 
life nor Gambrlll's offer, but for a settlement with 
you — an accounting. 

Arliss 
The money was not enough? 



8o THE GARGOYLE 

Vaughan 

No. You must give me back something you have 
taken from me. 



What? 



Arliss 

Vaughan 
{Earnestly) 



My ideals. 



Arliss 

{Startled) 

Ideals? Brave images in the sand until a wave has 
kissed them. 

Vaughan 
My self-respect. 

Arliss 
The vainest of all vanities. 

Vaughan 

My purity, my sense of honor, my dreams. You 
must give them back to me. I v^ant my faith in things 
again. I want to be the old Vaughan. I'm empty 
now — empty. I have nothing left. 



Arliss 



But disgust. 



THE GARGOYLE 8i 

Vaughan 
Yes, disgust. 

Arliss 
{Emphatically) 
And something else. 

Vaughan 

What else? Only pain — pain in my heart for every 
living thing that breathes. 

Arliss 

That^s it. 

Vaughan 

Yes; down in the depths I've wept for all the sins 
of the world, for I've been part of them all. I've felt 
the thrill of the thief and the hate of the beggar, for 
I, too, in my bitterness, have felt the impelling impulse, 
and when the impulse was born my judgment died. 
God! Don't you see I've lost my sense of right and 
wrong? I'm stripped — stripped! {He sinks bitterly, 
burying his head in his arms.) 

Arliss 

Aren't your phrases a bit overseasoned ? That's my 
literary prerogative, which they tell me, I always use. 
Come now, aren't you a trifle melodramatic? 



82 THE GARGOYLE 

Vaughan 

{Rising with deliberate calm) 

You shall take me seriously; you shall see I'm in 
earnest. Fm not a youth any longer, but a man with 
life washed out of him. You are responsible — do you 
hear? — for what I am. I was beginning to find my- 
self, to argue myself out of it — beginning to kill my 
grief. The right word from you would have saved 
me — but you made me go out into the world, knowing 
the kind of life I would lead, encouraging me in it. 
And now I've come back for an accounting. {He 
comes closer with great earnestness.) Give me back 
what I've lost. Can you? Give it back, all of it, 
for I'm dead without it, and it is you alone who have 
killed me; and you must answer — first. {He slowly 
draws a pistol from his pocket.) 

Arliss 

{Enthusiastically ) 

I have saved you — I have. Now you have reached 
the bottom. I'm sure of it. Don't you see, Vaughan, 
what I've kept for you, what I've given you, too; 
don't you see it? 

Vaughan 

{After a pause) 

I suppose you think I will halt because I do not 
understand. 



THE GARGOYLE 83 

Arliss 

(With great earnestness) 

If I do not make you understand, you must do to 
me as you intended to. 

Vaughan 

Must? 

Arliss 

Yes; for If I had destroyed all In you I should 
demand It. 

Vaughan 
{Hesitating, then putting the pistol upon the table) 
Weir? 

Arliss 

{Vigorously) 

Where Is your strength, your conviction? I shan't 
respect your Intention If you are so easily turned from 
It. (Vaughan reaches for the pistol. Arliss covers 
it.) It's not death I'm afraid of, but life. It would 
solve my problem and not help yours. 

Vaughan 
{Pointing sarcastically to the manuscript) 
You talk like one of your characters. 



84 THE GARGOYLE 

Arliss 

(Smiling) 

My characters are only my own different attitudes 
toward life. (Vaughan drops the pistol on the table. 
There is a pause while Arliss fingers it.) This has 
flashed like the proverbial symbol between us. Give 
it to me of your own free will, and I shall know that 
you take up Gambrill's offer and start with your head 
high and your manhood sure. 

Vaughan 

( Savagely ) 

There is no use. I tell you I have no will left, 
only impulse. 

Arliss 

{Quickly) 

Then I'll meet your spasmodic melodrama halfway. 
I'll gamble with you for that pistol and all it means. 

Vaughan 

Gamble? Ha! ha! How? By "matching" 
miseries like pennies? 

Arliss 
That just describes it. 

Vaughan 
Is this some scene from your new novel? 



THE GARGOYLE 85 

Arliss 
It's a bit too real and too unnatural. 

Vaughan 

A few moments cannot alter my intention. {He 
sits down.) 

Arliss 

(With force) 

You must resent every word I tell you; you must 
believe me in spite of yourself. Then only will you 
be convinced that what I did for you was right. 

Vaughan 

Then you do acknowledge it was deliberate? That 
with a purpose you sent me out to be what I was, to 
become what I am? 

Arliss 
Yes, deliberate. 

Vaughan 

Why? 

Arliss 

There was a chance that way. Otherwise, you 
might have become — 



86 THE GARGOYLE 

Vaughan 

{Sarcastically) 

— a famous novelist, a great success ; " one of the 
mountain peaks," they call you. 

Arliss 
The mountain peaks are lonely. 

Vaughan 
As if loneliness were hard! 

Arliss 
My sort of loneliness is. 

Vaughan 
Who's melodramatic now? 

Arliss 

Hear me out. Will you change places with me? I 
would take your life gladly, stripped and naked as 
you think it is, if you could take up mine, full as it 
seems to you. 

Vaughan 

I suppose I ought to ask you to — 

Arliss 

— to show my side of the penny? Yes. Trite 
as it may seem, I was young once. 



THE GARGOYLE 87 

Vaughan 
{Bitterly) 
Like me; I know that beginning. Go on 

Arliss 

And I soon made the astonishing discovery that the 
easiest way to avoid the petty worries of life was to 
deny their reality. Instead of absorbing them, I 
squeezed them out of my daily living. I — I — 

Vaughan 
But what has this to — 

Arliss 

Wait. I didn't realize the tyranny of this com- 
fortable habit until I faced the first conscious climax 
of my life. {Stops in recollection: Vaughan becomes 
interested.) Why drape the fact and bury it beneath 
pretty flowers? My heart was pounded by the tiny 
fists of a woman. 

Vaughan 
{With impulsive sympathy) 
You, too? I never knew. 

Arliss 

How beautifully your pity leaped toward me in 
spite of yourself ! I like that. You are real. 



88 THE GARGOYLE 

Vaughan 

I know what it Is. Was It the same sort of thing 
as mine? 

Arliss 
I loved her. 

Vaughan 
So your heart was broken too? 

Arliss 
{With deep conviction) 
No; If It only had been! 

Vaughan 
(Incredulously) 
If It only had been? 

Arliss 

Yes. But I wouldn't let It — I wouldn't. To kill 
the pain which was ready to flow into every fiber of 
my being, I shot my mind through It. It became 
something I had Imagined, something I had read or 
written; for I simply and deliberately and cruelly 
denied Its reality. It was born dead. 

Vaughan 
But that was strength. 



THE GARGOYLE 89 

Arliss 
That was cowardice. 

Vaughan 
Cowardice? How do you know? 

Arliss 

By the punishment which lurked in the reaction. 
I found I had no longer the power to keep real any 
feeling I wanted to feel. 

Vaughan 
{Puzzled) 
But you did not cease to feel? 

Arliss 

No, only I felt differently. I felt through my 
mind. In other words, I felt self-consciously. It's a 
bit subtle; but, to describe it in other words, my 
emotional life became something apart from me, some- 
thing I watched and guided — something which always 
knew I watched and guided. I never forgot how I 
should feel, only it was emotion parented by my mind 
and my sense of the situation — never directly, by the 
stimulus itself. I still had red blood that would leap 
to red lips, but there was thought in my kiss. I still 
had eyes that would weep, but no tear fell from its 
own weight of sadness. 



go THE GARGOYLE 

Vaughan 

{Thoughtfully) 

That recalls — 

Arliss 

I could not accept from the unsuspecting world 
either praise or blame for my actions, because / ques- 
tioned the motives which prompted them. What days 
and nights they were as I sat alone beginning to doubt 
my own sincerity! There is no misery you have 
tasted greater than that. Was I sincere? I wormed 
my life with that question. I couldn't dodge that. 
And to myself I was soon forced to acknowledge I 
was a hypocrite — ^an actor whose grimaces made his 
emotion. 

Vaughan 

{Incredulously) 

But couldn't you do anything? 

Arliss 

I fought against it. How I tried to be as real to 
myself as I seemed to others! But in every action, 
every word, every look which sprang so self-con- 
sciously from me, I saw {Pointing quickly to the 
shadow on the floor cast by the gargoyle outside) I 
saw a gargoyle leer its relentless question : " Are you 
sincere?" Then I resolved to crush its thick lips, 
to escape forever from my own mind, for once to aban- 



THE GARGOYLE 91 

don myself to a life of the senses — a life without 
thought — to feel without question gloriously and 
nakedly, to become an elemental being who could re- 
act properly, without indirection, from every stimulus 
— who could touch and be burned — ^who could be cut 
and bleed — who could suffer pain — 

Vaughan 
{Eagerly) 
Then, what did you do? 

Arliss 

I threw myself into a woman's life. I stifled each 
cry of treason to the memory of the other love. I 
went on and on with words, gestures, tears, and sighs, 
furrowing over the same roads and highways seeking 
this new heart. But when her love paused and her 
calm eyes claimed mine in return, I found all I really 
had to give her was the same conscious lack of sin- 
cerity. I had not changed. It had been too late. I 
had become an emotional hypocrite with nothing real 
about the things I knew I said so prettily. And when 
I looked at her — horror-stricken, I saw I had burned 
her fires to ashes. 

Vaughan 
You ruined her life? 

Arliss 
Absolutely. 



92 THE GARGOYLE 

Vaughan 
How terrible! 

Arliss 

How damnable! {During the long pause which 
followSj the dawn gently tints the room. The clock 
strikes the hour of five.) After that nothing remained 
for me but to become impersonal — to soil no other life 
with my thin fingers — to give nothing — to seek nothing 
— to get nothing — to be emotionally alone, detached. 

Vaughan 
{Thoughtfully) 
That's what you meant by loneliness. 

Arliss 

Yes. One reality was left: my imagination, my 
characters, my creations. 

Vaughan 
And other people's letters. 

Arliss 

Yes. Your life in them was real to me because 
it was not mine. {Softly) So you see, when it comes 
to " matching miseries," as you call it, I — 



THE GARGOYLE 93 

Vaughan 
{Almost tenderly) 
I see you are not so happy as I thought. 

Arliss 
{Looking at him cautiously and feeling his way) 
But you understand why? 

Vaughan 
Yes. 

Arliss 

Only the more intuitive than you would have 
grasped this without living it. You understand by an 
instinct; because it is an emotional echo. 

Vaughan 
{Half mysteriously) 
Where before have I — 

Arliss 

Back before tht dawn of your new life — you your- 
self felt it. 

Vaughan 

{Recalling) 

That's so — that's so. That's what kept me spell- 
bound listening; it seemed as though you were ex- 
plaining to me my old self before — 



94 THE GARGOYLE 

Arliss 
Before I sent you out in the world. 

Vaughan 

{Excitedly) 

No, no; you're baffling me with your subtleties. 
You're trying to confuse me; to make me forget why 
I've come. But I haven't forgotten. {Pointing to- 
wards the pistol.) You haven't convinced me I 
should alter my intention — for what has all this to 
do with mef I'm not that way now. Thank God, 
I'm not like you. But answer me — why did you send 
me out? 

Arliss 
{Clearly and emphatically) 
To save you from becoming what I am. 

Vaughan 
{Almost dazed with the idea) 
Would I have become — ? 

Arliss 

Yes. I am the logical end of what in you was only 
a tendency. 

Vaughan 
But are you sure ? 



THE GARGOYLE 95 

Arliss 

{Indignantly) 

Only my sureness excuses my conduct. I had one 
chance to save myself — when my grief first struck me. 
I could have shaken myself free of myself then, and 
then only, in that molding moment. You were like 
me in all things. I saw you were killing your grief 
as I did, letting your awakening literary sense master 
and direct your emotions — dodging the pain of it all. 
I couldn't let you come to my end — to my civilized 
soul misery. So I took the risk to make you what 
you are now, and I sent you out to find yourself, as 
you have, in the mud and in the elemental. 

Vaughan 
But you've failed — I'm ruined, anyway. 



No, no. 



Arliss 



Vaughan 



Yes, yes. YouVe saved me from one thing to toss 
me to another. You have no right to play with a 
human life. I can't forgive you. I must still claim 
my accounting. You've shown me your emptiness, but 
look at mine. You've shown me what you've saved 
me from, but what have you given me instead ? What 
have you given me? 



96 THE GARGOYLE 

Arliss 

Everything I have not. Everything except my 
fame, which I have bought by losing all you have. 
{He speaks with exaltation.) This dawn is yours, 
but not mine; you have drowned your grief in its 
colors. The paths of day and night are yours, but 
not mine, for over them you have dragged your pain. 
You've soaked the world with your tears; the world 
has become yours. But nothing is mine. You are the 
humanity about you ; you own its blood, its sweat, and 
its heartbeat. I own nothing. You've bought them 
for all time by feeling them properly, by feeling them 
sincerely. For that I'd give all my fame — just to be 
able to feel without self-consciousness — to feel as you, 
only because I felt. 

Vaughan 

{Spiritually moved) 

Yes, yes; what you say must be true. I felt it out 
there, but it lay in my heart seeking a voice. Your 
words have let something free within. So that's what 
my grief has given me — the world! 

Arliss 
I staked all that I might make you see. 

Vaughan 

I do now. {Enthusiastically) But in speaking like 
this, you've given the lie unto yourself. You've given 
me a release; it is my turn to give you yours. 



THE GARGOYLE 97 

Arliss 
You can't — ^you can't. Nobody can free me from 
myself. 

Vaughan 
I can. You've been living with a false idea of 
yourself. You're not what you think you are. You 
say you don't feel! Why, you, too, are thrilling still 
with the words you've given me. They are you, you, 
you! 

Arliss 
{With grief) 
No, I was only feeling in your place. 

Vaughan 

But you say you don't suffer. You are suffering 
now! 

Arliss 

{Sinking into a chair) 
I suffer only because I do not suffer properly. 

Vaughan 
{Looking at him awed) 
What a tragedy! 

Arliss 
No ; only a penalty. All " actors " pay it, once 
they honestly understand themselves. And we all 
act so. 



98 THE GARGOYLE 

Vaughan 

Actors! If you haven't changed from what you 
were, you must be acting wozi;'. (Arliss starts.) Have 
you assumed these attitudes to save yourself from my 
intention? (Aggressively) Have you spoken because 
you felt it, or because you knew it was the thing to say ? 

Arliss 

{With deep pain) 

But you are convinced that what I did for you — 

Vaughan 

No! I can't be unless I know you are sincere. 
(Arliss winces. Vaughan leans towards him across 
the table.) Tell me, have you been sincere with me? 
Are you sincere now? 

Arliss 

{Almost pitifully) 

Won't you show me that you believe I am? Won't 
you please let me feel I am sincere — ^just for oncef 

{He looks at Vaughan, who, after a pause, 
with a look of pity, slowly pushes the pistol 
towards him. Arliss smiles faintly, sunk deep 
in his chair.) 



SLOW CURTAIN 



IN HIS HOUSE 



PEOPLE 

Senator Volney Pierce 

Claire, his wife 

Judith Shannon, their friend 



SCENE 
The Pierce Apartments, Washington, D. C, 



IN HIS HOUSE* 

y^ ROOM of a suite in an apartment hotel. 
y~m Through the large windows at the right, 
which probably overlook a park, the brilliant 
sun pourSj touching vividly the usual furniture resting 
in the usual way. The reflected gleam upon the tele- 
phone calls attention to the long table at the left upon 
which it rests, and a deep chair near it yawns invit- 
ingly. Another smaller table close to the window 
holds the magazines of the day and some flowers of the 
season. The couch, a few stray chairs and what-nots 
appropriately fill their mission. Two doorways, each 
half concealed through short hallways, lead off: one 
at the right in back, which apparently serves as en- 
trance from the house elevators without; the other, 
down at the left, which obviously opens into the more 
intimate living quarters. At the back, at the left, 
the curtained alcove does not completely conceal the 
outlines of another room which proves to be the library. 
There is little which is either very personal or charac- 
teristic in the atmosphere, and the scene simply sug- 
gests, on closer inspection, the more or less temporary 
resting place of adequate means and position. 

♦Copyright, 191 1, by George Middleton. All rights re- 
served. 

lOI 



I02 IN HIS HOUSE 

The curtain rises with Claire and Volney seated 
as though there had been a long pause in their talking. 
Claire Pierce has just passed thirty; from the settled 
expression of her face, with its high forehead and firm 
mouth, one deduces great strength of determination, 
and in the steady, large blue eyes is discovered a latent 
spirituality. But one cannot brush aside the thin veil 
luhich seems to hang upon the outlines as though she 
has passed through some indelible experience. While 
she sits watching her husband a restlessness tinges her 
words and actions, 

Volney Pierce would easily attract attention any- 
where because of his sheer virility. The gaunt, deep- 
lined, middle-aged countenance, with its large, facile- 
lipped mouth and sinall, sunken black eyes, conveys 
the impression of deep living and thought. Yet there 
is, too, in his manner an instinctive appreciation for 
subtleties usually foreign to his type. His voice is 
resonant and contains notes of tenderness and emotion. 

The long pause continues, and during it he has 
again picked up his newspaper and begun glancing 
casually through it, 

Volney 
I'm afraid, Claire, there is nothing more to be said. 

Claire 
In spite of my appeal, you feel you must do it? 



IN HIS HOUSE 103 

VOLNEY 

Yes; your reasons are sentimental, dear. I've 
thought it over carefully. It means my Senatorship 
another time — sure. {Significantly) You can never 
know how much I need the excitement of my career. 

Claire 

For ten years your career has been my one thought. 
I don't want you to do anything dishonest now. 

VOLNEY 

It's politics, Claire. Addison controls the State leg- 
islature; he simply agrees to re-elect me for certain 
considerations. It's done every day. 

Claire 
But never before by you. You mustn't do it. 

VOLNEY 

{Rising, going to her, and patting her tenderly) 
There, there, Claire. 

Claire 
You won't listen to me ? 

VOLNEY 

I have, dear, patiently. When Addison 'phones me, 
let me know at once. I'm afraid I intend to consent 



I04 IN HIS HOUSE 

to his conditions. {He goes out, leaving Claire 
alone.) 

Claire 

It's not honest; but, perhaps, I don't understand. 

{She rises and crosses to the window, slowly 
pulling the curtains aside and looking thought- 
fully away. She sighs, not hearing the tele- 
phone until its ring is repeated. Then she 
goes and takes down the receiver.) 

Is this Mr. Add — Oh, Miss Shannon— Miss Judith 
Shannon? Tell her to come right up. 

{She replaces the receiver and goes to call 
VoLNEY, but, on second thought, hesitates and 
walks off in back. There is a sound of greet- 
ing without, then she and Judith Shannon 
enter. 

Judith Shannon, past her first youth, too, 
with her auburn hair crowning an exceedingly 
mobile fa^e and nervous black eyes, gives at 
first glance an impression of sex and tempera- 
ment. But it is seen by her soft manner of 
speech and conduct that she has schooled and 
controlled her impulses beneath a cultivated 
mentality. She is a strong personality and im- 
mediately inspires confidence. One notices, 
however, that while she is evidently fond of 
Claire^ she is not quite at ease throughout.) 



IN HIS HOUSE 105 

Judith 
Fm so glad I found you. 

Claire 

What a stranger for an old friend, Judith; It's 
nearly six months since — 

Judith 

I know; but horrid business difficulties with my 
publishers and — 

Claire 
You'll stay with us now, of course? 

Judith 

No; I only ran over between trains. I'm sailing 
next Saturday. 

Claire 
{Surprised) 
Abroad? Another of your sudden Impulses? 

Judith 

I simply can't write here; I need sunlight and the 
sea. Fm going to a little island in the Mediterranean 
to finish my novel. 



io6 IN HIS HOUSE 

Claire 

How wonderful! I wish I were going alongf. 
Volney'll be so surprised, too; we'll both miss you. 
I'll call him. 

Judith 
(Slightly agitated) 
Is — Volney in? 

Claire 
Yes. 

Judith 

I thought he'd be at the Senate — that we might be 
alone. 

Claire 

No; he's waiting a 'phone call. He'll be so glad 
to see you. 

Judith 

(Stopping Claire as she starts to the door) 

Claire, don't call Volney — ^just yet. I — I didn't 
come over only to say good-by— 



IN HIS HOUSE 107 

Claire 

{Her manner changing: her voice drops to a 

whisper; she does not conceal her 

excitement) 

Judith, you have some word from — ? 

Judith 
Yes. 

Claire 
{Anxiously) 
Has anything happened to him? 

Judith 
I have a letter for you. 

Claire 

Give it to me. Wait. 

{While Judith takes the letter from her bag 
she watches Claire half with pity and criti- 
cism as she goes first to the door, left, and then 
to the library and back. After convincing her- 
self that they cant be heard she comes down 
to Judith.) 

Volney must have stepped into his own room. 



io8 IN HIS HOUSE 

Judith 

{Taking another sealed envelope which is inclosed 
in the letter j and hesitating) 

A friend who was with him sent it to me with the 
details. He must have given my address. It's not 
very good news, I'm afraid. 

(Claire is awed, and apprehensively takes the 
letter slowly from Judith's reluctant fingers. 
She looks at Judith^ seeming to divine the 
truth, then sits by table, and hastily tears the 
letter open. Judith silently watches her read 
what is apparently a short note. Claire be- 
trays nothing. She puts it down softly and 
bows her head. There is a long pause.) 

Judith 

(Softly, as she refers to the other letter in her hand) 

His last words were of you, Claire. His lips were 
whispering your name when — They have buried him 
on the hillside overlooking the blue waters. They put 
violets — (Claire winces audibly, and Judith places 
her hand sympathetically on the bended shoulders.) 
Perhaps, Claire, you'd better read this yourself — later. 
{She places the letter upon the table near her.) 

Claire 

He blames me, Judith, He loved me to the end — 
yet blames me. 



IN HIS HOUSE 109 

Judith 

He must have suffered — and you here {Glancing 
toward Volney's room) in his house. 

Claire 

Dead ! Silence between us for seven years and then 
this — to blame me. And I loved him every moment. 
I loved him. {She places her hands to her eyes; then 
she speaks in a strange voice,) Judith, why don't the 
tears come? There are no tears; I can't even give 
him tears. He's dead! And they put violets — 

{She bows again with one long sob — trembling. 
Judith stands by embarrassed at her own con- 
strained sympathy. Some moments pass in 
silence. ) 

Judith 

Perhaps I did wrong to tell you, since it cannot alter 
matters here. 

Claire 

You did right ; a last wish is sacred and — and it will 
make a difference here. {Though she glances toward 
her husband's room significantly ^ Judith conceals her 
eager interest.) Volney owes me something he can 
never repay. I've lived here with him and sent the 
other away. Yet all the man I love sends me from 
his deathbed is blame for living in my husband's house. 
Oh! 



no IN HIS HOUSE 

Judith 
That is natural, Claire. It's hard — bitter hard. 

Claire 

But I've suffered, too. He should have seen I was 
doing my duty. Was it easy to give up all he was 
to me in spite of myself? You knew at the time why 
I kept my husband ignorant. And besides, Judith, 
Volney loved me. 

Judith 

{Controlling herself with difficulty) 

Yes, Volney loved you. But I'd — I'd better leave 
you alone. Is there anything / can do? 

Claire 

He is dead, Judith. What can you do? {Taking 
her hand affectionately) You've been so good. You 
bring all things back each time I see you; for you 
alone knew what terrible days they were when — ^when 
it was being finished. I never would have staggered 
through them without Volney's discovering, if it hadn't 
been for you. 

Judith 
No, Claire, I did nothing. 

Claire 

You protected each of us from the other. If you 
hadn't been with him so much working on the articles 



IN HIS HOUSE III 

together — Do you remember those articles? 
{Vaguely) What were they about? 

Judith 
{Struggling) 
I forget — I — 

Claire 

Oh, Judith, each time when things became too hard 
later, you were always ready to help me. My strength 
has faltered so often but I kept on. Judith! Judith! 
Can I ever forget your goodness to me and to Volney? 

Judith 

{Impulsively) 

Claire ! Stop ! Stop ! I can't stand it. Let me go. 
Fm not a hypocrite ; it isn't in my blood. 

Claire 
Judith! 

Judith 

{Almost fiercely) 

I can't take your thanks. I don't want you ever 
to speak of this to me again. 

Claire 
Judith! 



112 IN HIS HOUSE 

Judith 

That's why I haven't been here lately, why I'm 
going far away for good. Your confidences have been 
a burning temptation to me. I can't bear them any 
more, do you hear? I can't live in this lie between 
you and Volney; it's crushing all that's decent in me. 
I can't. 

Claire 
{In an intuitive flash) 
Judith, you love my husband! 

Judith 

{Openly) 
Yes. 

Claire 
{Quickly) 
Does Volney know? 

Judith 

Nothing. {As Claire turns away relieved.) 
Though I knew you didn't love him as he thinks. 
I haven't been disloyal, {hnpulsively) But I tell you, 
Claire, if he had loved me I wouldn't have been the 
coward — 

Claire 
— that I was? You mean that? 



IN HIS HOUSE 113 

Judith 
You've wrecked a man's life. 

Claire 
{Firmly) 
I did my duty by Volney. 

Judith 
(Fiercely) 
Did you? 

Claire 

Yes. What he has become through me proves it. 
His career is mine; his integrity — {She suddenly 
recalls the dishonest deed her husband is contemplating. 
The force of her words fails her, and she sinks into 
the chair, looking toward his room.) I tell you, 
Judith, I did right; of course, I did right. 

Judith 

And the other man? 

Claire 
Judith, this is terrible of you. 



114 IN HIS HOUSE 

Judith 

{Realizing her cruelty and going to Claire more 
tenderly ) 

Little Claire, forgive me. I was a beast to add to 
your pain in this moment. Neither one of us is her- 
self. Of course, Volney is your justification. He 
loves you; you need fear nothing from me. Forgive 
me. Only love means something different to me than 
you have made it. That's all. This is good-by. Oh, 
don't be sorry for me. But see that you never let him 
weaken for your own sake — if not his. ( The telephone 
rings. ) 

Claire 

Addison! (She stands horrified, realizing its sig- 
nificance; the long J impatient ring is repeated.) 

Volney 
{Outside) 
Is that for me, Claire? 

Claire 

( To herself as she slowly walks toward the 
telephone) 

Addison ! 



IN HIS HOUSE 115 

VOLNEY 

{As he enters) 

See who It is! {Sees Judith.) Why, Judith, I 
didn't know — 

Judith 

{Self -defensively throughout as they shake hands) 

I've only come to shake your hand. Claire will 
explain where I'm off to. 

VOLNEY 

Off? 

Claire 
{Having taken down receiver) 
It's for you, Volney. 

Volney 

Tell them to hold the wire. (Claire does so, 
mechanically putting the receiver down on the table, 
yet scarcely watching them,) You mustn't run away 
like this without — 

Judith 

I know it's horrid of me, but I didn't realize how 
long I was talking to Claire. Goodness! I am late 
for my train now. My cab's waiting. Good-by. 



ii6 IN HIS HOUSE 

VOLNEY 

I'll see you down. 

Judith 

No. One mustn't keep a Senator's 'phone and busi- 
ness of state waiting. I've said good-by to Claire. 
And now to you. Good luck, Volney, and happiness. 
{She shakes hands again honestly j concealing every- 
things and goes out quickly.) 

Volney 

Why, how strange of her. I wonder why — {He 
stands a second perplexed and then goes off back to 
close the door. Claire is alone.) 

Claire 

" Never let him weaken." {Suddenly a determined 
look leaps into her face; she takes up' the receiver, not 
noting Volney has re-entered, and hears.) Is this 
Mr. Addison? Well, won't you ring up later? Sen- 
ator Pierce is not here. He'll be back soon. 

Volney 

{Coming to her) 
Claire ! 

Claire 

{Hangs up the receiver and faces him) 

Volney, you shan't make this deal. I can't let you 
at any cost — now. 



IN HIS HOUSE 117 

VOLNEY 

Must we go over this again? 

Claire 

For the last time. I beg of you not to do this. 
Can't your love for me without question do as I ask? 

VOLNEY 

{Losing patience) 
It's absurd to put it that way. 

Claire 

{Preventing him as he reaches toward the telephone) 

This touches something deep between ourselves, Vol- 
ney. I can't let you cheapen my ideal of you; I can't 
let you do one single thing that's dishonest — noiv. 
I'd rather lose your love, rather topple over whatever 
happiness and joy you have found in me than let you 
do this. I'm desperate, Volney. Give this up. 

Volney 

Claire, you're ridiculously capricious to-day. What's 
back of this wild mood? Why should this be so ab- 
normally important to you? I have said it's only a 
risk. 

Claire 
It's your willingness to take it. 



ii8 IN HIS HOUSE 

VOLNEY 

What's the hidden reason that touches something 
deep between ourselves? Why should I give this up? 

Claire 
{Realizing what must inevitably follow) 
Volney, for my justification. 

VOLNEY 

(Mystified) 



Justification ? 



Claire 



Yes. You owe me a great debt, Volney. You 
never knew. You must repay me now by keeping 
yourself the man I thought you. By keeping your 
career and integrity clean. That can be my only 
justification for what IVe done. Oh! (Her hand 
accidentally touches the letter she has placed in her 
bosom; she breaks a bit.) You must justify me — you 
must. I see that; and nothing else — otherwise — oh, 
the horror, the grimness, the irony! 

(He stands looking at her as she is shuddering. 
Then he half turns her toward him, forcing 
her to look into his eyes.) 

VOLNEY 

What is it, Claire? 



IN HIS HOUSE 119 

Claire 

(without flinching) 

There's been another man in my life for seven years 
and I gave him up. {They stand some moments; 
then VoLNEY, very quiet, slowly takes his hands from, 
her shoulders, and sits upon the chair hack of her. 
She still stands where she was without turning toward 
him.) Help me. Help me, Volney. 

VOLNEY 

Go on. 

Claire 

There isn't much. I knevv^ him before — ^before you, 
and I — but I 'didn't realize till — till afterwards that 
the touch of his hand — Oh, I can't put it into words. 
But he loved me, too. 

Volney 
Why didn't he come to me? 

Claire 
He wanted to. 

Volney 
You prevented? 

Claire 
Yes. 



120 IN HIS HOUSE 

VOLNEY 

Then why didn't you tell me? 

Claire 

I didn't want you to know. I sent him away al- 
most as soon as we both realized. We haven't seen 
each other since. 

VOLNEY 

Why? 

Claire 
{.Turning toward him for the first time) 
For your sake. 

VOLNEY 

For me? 

Claire 

I couldn't allow any blow like that to halt the de- 
velopment of your character ; it was struggling between 
expediences and ideals; it had just begun to crystallize 
so strong and firm and — 

VOLNEY 
{Incredulously) 
My development! 



IN HIS HOUSE 121 

Claire 

And besides, I couldn't let any scandal hurt your 
career. 

VOLNEY 

How could that — ? 

Claire 

You were a coming man; no matter how little you 
might be to blame, the voters would never have sup- 
ported you. You wouldn't divorce me; you were too 
— too decent, and there was no cause save just I 
loved him. And I couldn't get the divorce by paltry 
connivance, for you never would have been able to 
explain to the public that it was for my happiness. 
So I — I sent him away — that, in the stress of public 
life, your character might grow even stronger with 
the woman you loved standing by and that you might 
not be smirched with a family scandal. Your career, 
your honor, your integrity have been everything to me. 
That's why you musn't do this thing. For God, 
don't you see? If you fall or falter or weaken, all 
I have done will be terrible; for I've just learned 
that — that he couldn't forget me, that his life has 
been wrecked, and that he hasn't been strong enough 
to stand what I asked of him. And it's mainly my 
fault. Volney, Volney, you owe me something, for I 
gave up what the world calls happiness for your sake. 



122 IN HIS HOUSE 

Now you know, Volney; now you know — everything. 
Don't be ice. 

(She bows her head. Volney's face has been 
inscrutably calm until, after she finishes, he 
slowly grasps the entire significance of her con- 
fession. There is a tense silence.) 



Volney 

( Slowly ) 

My career built with the wreckage of another life! 

(Claire watches him in suspense as he rises 
and after a moments hesitation goes to the 
telephone.) 

Claire 
{In a hushed voice) 
You'll give this deal up? 

Volney 
{At the telephone) 
Hello! Give me Garden Seventy-one. Yes. 

Claire 
You'll give this up? 



IN HIS HOUSE 123 

VOLNEY 

{Ignoring her) 

Hello! Is Mr. Addison there? Yes; Senator 
Pierce. Thank you. {Pause.) Hello, Addison. 
I've been thinking that little matter over and I've 
decided I can't accept. (Claire gives a cry of joy.) 
No. Under no considerations. Personal reasons. 
Walt. {Deliberately) This Is for your private ear. 
I'm also sending my resignation by the next mail to 
the Governor. Yes, resignation. No, I shan't even 
fill my unexpired term. Personal reasons again. I 
thought I'd tell you so that you could see " the old 
man " before It gets out. Irrevocably. Good-by. {He 
hangs up the receiver; they stare at each other.) 

Claire 

What have you done? 

VOLNEY 

You heard. 

Claire 
Given up everything? 

VoLNEY 

I can accept nothing at that price, nor keep what 
I gained by it. {She is completely stunned, and he 
continues with bitterness struggling beneath a cold^ 



124 IN HIS HOUSE 

deliberate manner.) Was that your idea of my char- 
acter? My love In those days? My strength? Did 
you think, at the test, I could not, as a man, stand 
alone ? 

Claire 
I only thought you needed me. 

VOLNEY 

I did your strength and love, but not your pity. 

Claire 

You did not know what it was I gave you — the 
effect was the same. 

VOLNEY 

At the time, perhaps; but your own lie has killed 
its offspring; now everything's sunk down. The foun- 
dations have fallen because they were soaked to rot- 
tenness in a woman's tears. 

Claire 
I gave them willingly for you. 

VOLNEY 

You expect me to receive them proudly like most 
men? Is that the sort of man you think me? To be 
proud when a woman sacrificed herself and the Aian 



IN HIS HOUSE 125 

she loved, fearing I would otherwise fall? That I 
couldn't rise above talk? Proud? It's an insult to 
all that's best in me. 

Claire 
{^Halted completely by this unexpected reaction) 
Insult ? 

VOLNEY 

Yes. Not to have had the chance to offer you 
happiness even with your poor weak fool. 

Claire 

{Defensively) 

You would have given everything, I knew; if I had 
asked. But that wouldn't have altered the other facts. 
I did what I thought was honorable by you. 

VoLNEY 

{Scornfully) 

Honorable? You thought what you did honorable? 
You quibble with me because I was about to accept 
Addison's questionable offer; you are shocked by that; 
yet, with your flexible logic and feminine ideas of 
moral obligations for seven years you can see nothing 
despicable in living a lie In my house. Honorable? 
Ha, ha! 



126 IN HIS HOUSE 

Claire 
I suffered for it. 

VOLNEY 

That was sufficient excuse, I suppose, for the deceit 
and the hypocrisy. You acted well; played your part 
splendidly; tricked even my instincts — for I never sus- 
pected. 

Claire 

{JVith a certain desperate strength and sincerity) . 

Give me credit for that. There would have been 
only a half-gift had I brought you daily tears and a 
sad smile. There would have been no sacrifice had I 
given you a broken reed for your constant care and 
pity. What if I have hid every sigh, every tear, every 
dull leaden empty hour? You blame me for the lie; 
credit me with my consideration and sincerity as I 
saw it. 

VOLNEY 

Sincerity? And you lived with me all these years 
as my wife, and I never knew. Actress! {Hitting 
himself. ) Fool ! 

Claire 

I accepted your name, your roof, your protection. 
There can be no half ways. I had to give if I took. 



Wanton ! 



No! 



IN HIS HOUSE 127 

VOLNEY 

(Revolted) 
Claire 



VOLNEY 

I understand now. Wanton! With your passive 
pleasures, taking lips that meant his, embraces that 
touched other memories into fire! And his name! 
How was it you never gasped hi& name? 

Claire 

Don't phrase those hours, do you hear? Don't go 
so far. I've done with all my woman's strength what 
I saw was right by you, and you're pulling everything 
down upon me. I've shown to save your integrity 
I was willing to risk your love, by telling you what 
I have. But there are som.e things your tongue shan't 
touch. You think I did wrong, but I never stole one 
hour with him. I tell you I played straight that way. 

VOLNEY 

How do I know? How can I ever know? 

Claire 
My word. 



128 IN HIS HOUSE 

VOLNEY 

Your word? When you lived this lie for seven 
years — when in not one single act have you changed 
toward me since I first brought you to my house. 
You've given everything just the same; yet it was a 
lie, all of it a lie. How can I believe in the truth of 
one single thing in the present or in the past? How 
can I, just because you've given your word — ^your 
w^ord ? 

(She sits staring for a long while before her, 
and the absolute uselessness of future words 
overwhelms her. He has halted, controlled 
himself, and stands looking long out of the 
window. The sunlight lessens.) 

Claire 

{In a dull, dead voice) 

That's true. It's over — finished. We can't live 
together any longer. What irony! Yet I had the 
courage to speak at last as I had the courage to live. 
You won't do the dishonest thing now. But what 
irony to have killed your love to save you from the 
other ! 

VOLNEY 

(Turning, questions himself a second, then after 
a pause, speaks with calmness) 

Claire, my love for you has been dead for some time. 



IN HIS HOUSE 129 

Claire 
(Silenced at first, not grasping it) 
It was dead before thisf I did not kill it? 

VOLNEY 

No, it just passed. 

Claire 

{Smiling cynically) 

Even that. Then now it was your vanity and not 
your heart I hurt. 

VOLNEY 

I was going to sneak out of it — the injured party — 
but I guess we'd better face the truth between us for 
once. 

Claire 
Yes, it would be best at the end. 

Volney 

I considered this deal because I hadn't the moral 
courage to fight as I used to; for back of me here in 
my home I knew my own deception. That's why I 
couldn't play straight outside; why I needed the mere 
excitement to — to get away from things. 



I30 IN HIS HOUSE 

Claire 

{Bitterly) 

So the man, too, could live with his wife when love 
was dead! 

VOLNEY 

It's different somehow. 

Claire 
Everything is different with a man. 

Volney 

Yes, the tolerance of you women has made it so. 
(He starts toward the door.) 

Claire 

(To herself) 
Even that. 

Volney 
I think that is all. 

Claire 
What are you going to do? 

Volney 

111 arrange things. Then I'll begin new work and 
mold something apart from this lie. I can, I think. 



IN HIS HOUSE 131 

I'll take up my writing again perhaps. When matters 
are settled I'll go abroad. 

Claire 

Abroad? {She recalls.) Wait, Volney. {Directly) 
Is it Judith Shannon ? 

Volney 

{Turning surprised) 
Judith? 

Claire 

We do not always know one love is dead until 
another comes. Do you love her? 

Volney 
No, certainly not. I've had enough of love. 

Claire 
{Slowly) 
Go to her, Volney. When you are free, go to her. 

Volney 
There never has been one word — 

Claire 
I know; she told me. She loves you. Go to her. 



132 IN HIS HOUSE 

VOLNEY 

{To himself) 
Judith! 

Claire 

That is the one last thing from me you can believe; 
my " dishonesty " cannot touch that. 

VOLNEY 

Judith! 

Claire 
She also knew about me and the other one. 

VOLNEY 
{With admiration) 
And she never told me? How splendid of her! 

Claire 
{Realizing what the future may offer to him now) 
Go to her. 

VOLNEY 

I suppose we all deserve a little happiness out of 
this tangle. I'll arrange things quietly. I'll leave 
the house to-night. 



IN HIS HOUSE 133 

Claire 

Yes; to-night. {JVith a despairing emotional note) 
And what's to become of me? 

VOLNEY 

{Kindly) 

Why, you must go to him, of course. Go to the 
man you love! 

{He goes out quietly, closing the door. She 
stands dumb at his words. Then she fingers 
the letter which Judith has placed on the 
table. She stares before her while the day 
fades,) 



SLOW CURTAIN 



MADONNA 



PEOPLE 

Mr. Lee 

Donna, his daughter 
Gilbert Steele, her fiance 
Barker, an old family servant 



SCENE 
Living room and library in Mr. Lee's home 



MADONNA* 

f~W~yHE room suggests long occup^ancy : its book- 
m lined walls and old-fashioned furniture indi- 

cate the owner s love of simplicity rather than 
a small purse. A large engraving of '' The Sistine 
Madonna " in a faded, black wooden frame first catches 
the eye. Lamps and candle-sticks about are whimsical 
in shape, and they rest securely in settled places amid 
the horse-haired sofa and chairs, A fireplace at the 
left, near a door which opens into Donna's room, 
casts its wavering light upon a snow-rimmed window 
by it. The general entrance to the room is in a 
further corner at the right. Another door on this side 
leads to Mr. Lee's bedroom. The soft lights, with a 
suggestion of wind and snow without, give a sense of 
comfort and intimacy to those within. 

As the curtain rises, Donna and Mr. Lee, with 
Barker waiting on them, are seated at the table just 
finishing their meal. 

Donna is a sweet girl, about twenty, with golden 
hair and blue eyes, quaintly pretty in her simple frock. 
Though there is a suggestion of strength she gives 
rather the impression of frank, unspoiled innocence. 

* Copyright, 1911, by George Middleton. All rights re- 
served. 

137 



138 MADONNA 

Mr. Lee is middle-aged, handsome, and with a del- 
icate tenderness which somehow is lost at times be- 
neath a spasmodically assumed manner of speech. His 
hair is already prematurely gray, and while he is pow- 
erful to the eye, a close observer might detect signs 
of physical weakness. He has evidently lived an in- 
tent life aimed at a great desire and shadowed by deep 
sorrow. He is in his long smoking-jacket. 

Barker is sixty, fairly vigorous, and unoffensively 
paternal. By preference he is obviously in a butler s 
suit — rather old-fashioned. 

Barker has placed the ices upon the table, but they 
are left untouched. Something preoccupies each. 
Barker removes the ices, showing that he has noticed 
they have not been eaten. He places a small cup of 
coffee before DoNNA. She waves it aside in silence. 

Lee 
ril take coffee to-night, Barker. 

Barker 
{Half reprovingly) 
But Dr. Kinard especially said — 

Lee 

Doctors always forbid you taking the only things 
you care about. (Barker reluctantly pours it half 



MADONNA 139 

out. Lee motions him to fill cup. Takes a sip, puts 
it down J pushing it aside.) Bah! Something's the 
matter with everything to-night, Barker. 

Barker 

So I see. Neither you or Miss Donna have eaten 
at all, and I w^as especially careful on this occasion. 

Donna 

{^Sweetly) 

Everything w^as splendid, Barker, only — I — I v^^asn't 
hungry. 

Lee 

Neither w^as I, Barker. 

Barker 

I should have known you wouldn't be — this last 
night together. 

(Lee motions him to be silent. Donna rises 
and crosses, pulls aside the window curtains. 
She breathes upon the windowpane, and looks 
absently out with a curious mingling of gravity 
and controlled nervousness. Lee watches his 
daughter a second and sighs.) 

Lee 
(Aside) 
Barker, you're a damn fool! 



140 MADONNA 

Barker 

So your father said. ( Lee smiles and pats Barker's 
shoulder, crossing to large chair. He sits with a slight 
effort. Barker looks from one to the other know- 
ingly. There is a broken pause during which Barker 
clears the things to a small serving-table in back.) It 
was a bad night out, sir. (2Vo answer.) Yes, sir. 
{He pauses.) Papers say it'll be clear to-morrow. 
Hope so. Church bells sound so much sweeter across 
the snow — after a storm when the air is clear, and 
the sunlight — > {He sees they are paying no attention. 
He deliberately rattles a plate. They look.) Yes, sir! 
Before we were married, the late Mrs. B. remarked 
there was sunshine tucked away in most dark clouds. 
Don't take it so hard. Suppose it would have broken 
the late Mrs. B.'s heart, too, — to have seen you leave 
us. Miss Donna. Never had any children of our 
own — to speak of. Our boy didn't amount to much — 
You were all. 

Donna 

{Recalling fondly) 

Yes. Dear old nursie; how good she was to me. 
And I was so cross — ^when I was young. (Lee 
grunts.) 

Barker 

Yes. The late Mrs. B. often remarked it. But 
she loved you — as we did — just for crying day and 
night. 



MADONNA 141 

Lee 

Babies always cry at night. {Thoughtfully) So do 
grown people — when they cry. Wonder why? (He 
sniffles suspiciously.) I must have caught a cold. Bet- 
ter bring another log. 

Barker 

{Choking up) 

Yes, sir; we've both got colds. Miss Donna, {She 
turns) I have a little wedding present for you. 

Donna 

{Impulsively) 
Oh, no. Barker, you can't — 

Barker 

Can't afford it? I'd like to know what I've been a 
butler all my life for. 

Donna 

I didn't mean that, Barker. Only Gilbert and I 
have so many presents, I don't know how we're going 
to live up to them. Besides, I have your love, your 
good wishes, your — 

Barker 

Yes, Miss. But I have as much right as Mr. Lee: 
he's only your father. When he was away so often 



142 MADONNA 

the late Mrs. B. and me combed out your golden curls 
many a time, and washed your face, and — 

Donna 

{Reminiscently ) 

Yes, yes, — Daddy never saw how dirty I could be 
{Laughing) and how I loved it. 

Barker 

It's not much. {He feels in one pocket, then an- 
other, until at last he pulls out a plush box contain- 
ing an old-fashioned jeweled necklace of odd design.) 
Hope you'll wear it to-morrow. It really isn't from 
7ne. I've just been keeping it all these years for you. 
Had it fixed up a bit. It's from the late Mrs. B. 

Donna 

{Takes it tenderly) 

Oh! how lovely! Look, father! {Pause.) Barker, 
I should like to have you fasten it on. {He takes it as 
she bows her head. He fumbles in fastening it.) 

Barker 

My fingers are sort of mixed to-night. {She stifles 
a little sob. Lee coughs suspiciously, which Barker 



MADONNA 143 

notes.) I'd better get that log. We're all catching 
cold. 

(Barker exits hastily with serving tray. 
Donna watches him with feared eyes. The 
door closes; pause. Lee grunts. Donna runs 
to her father, losing control of herself; she sobs, 
kneeling beside him.) 

Donna 

Oh, Daddy, I can't leave you. I can't go away 
alone with Gilbert to-morrow. I don't want to be 
married. 

Lee 

{Holding her close, with infinite understanding 
and tenderness throughout) 



Girlie! girlie! 



Donna 



I can't bear leaving home and all my little treasures. 
I feel just as though I were losing everything I held 
dearest — everything and you, Daddy. 

Lee 

I know. I know. I don't want you to go, either. 
I don't — I don't, my little girl. {He controls him- 
self.) Now, I understand how your grandmother 
must have felt when I took your mother away from 



144 MADONNA 

home. I never thought I'd be feeling it myself. It's 
twice as hard : I have no one to bear it vi^ith me. 



Donna 

Daddy, say I can't go. 

Lee 

That's natural. Every girl — But you mustn't feel 
this w^ay v^^ith Gilbert. (She looks at him.) You 
mustn't. 

Donna 

Oh! I can't help it. I've tried but I can't. And 
I love him so. I've always loved him so. But he's 
going to take me away from you to-morrow, and I'll 
be alone with him, and then — {Trembling) Oh! I 
can't — I can't — I can't. {She sobs heart-broken on 
his breast. He soothes her hair. He feels helpless. 
Long pause.) 

Lee 

If your mother had only — {He draws a long 
breath in recollection.) You need her now, don't 
you, girlie? 

Donna 
Yes — ^yes — she*d understand. 



MADONNA 145 

Lee 

Maj^be I do a bit, too; though I'm only a man. I 
haven't been father and mother to you all these years 
without knowing — 

Donna 

{Looking up into his face) 

Oh! Daddy! you've been everything to me. Every- 
thing a girl could want. That's partly what makes it 
so hard to go — because I know how it will hurt you to 
see me leave the church. (Eagerly) Oh, Daddy! why 
won't you come and live with us? Gilbert wants it. 
Why do you say you must be alone, now? 

Lee 

Because it's best, girlie — best. You and Gilbert 
know each other better than most lovers — since you 
were little tots, too, eh? But there'll be many new 
things you two will have to work out all by yourselves, 
and it wouldn't do to have an old, settled, gray-haired 
man like me snoozing around meddling and mixing 
things up. No, no. It's best young people should 
start alone. 

Donna 

I suppose you're right; you always are. (He denies 
this.) But you said you were going on a long journey. 
Couldn't we — 



146 MADONNA 

Lee 

(Smiling and concealing significance) 
The long journey I start on soon, I shall take alone. 

Donna 

But I could have waited. So would Gilbert, if I 
had said so. {Eagerly) It's not too late now. If 
you'll only say so, we'll postpone — 

Lee 
{Smiling) 
No, no — 

Donna 
Let me tell him to wait until — 



Lee 

{Shaking his head and lifting hers with his two' 
hands until she looks into his eyes) 

You think it's because you're leaving me and home 
that you feel this way. It isn't, dearest. You're just 
deceiving yourself, and I understand the real reason, 
this last night, girlie. I understand everything. 



MADONNA 147 

Donna 

{Her head sinks into his lap as she realizes he 
understands her fear) 

Yes, that's why I am afraid — afraid — afraid. 

{She sobs nervously. There is a long pause 
while the clock slowly strikes nine. Lee notes 
itj and looking up sees the Madonnaj which 
has slowly grown out of the darkness as the 
moonbeams have stolen in through the window. 
Pause.) 

Lee 

{Rambling casually) 

The night is slipping away and the storm has 
ceased. See ! the moon is struggling a wee bit to silver 
all the land. It takes me back to another night when — 
{He sighs.) Little girl, I've tried to let you know 
life as it is with no falseness: for the best women are 
those who know dark secrets yet keep their hearts 
pure. You've been about enough to know — enough. 
Gilbert, too, oh! he's a fine lad, isn't he? {She nods 
quickly.) Gilbert hasn't anybody but us. Remember 
his father? Often wondered why he asked me to take 
care of his son after he passed by. Now I know: it 
was for you. I've made Gilbert see some of the world 
— for I wanted you both to understand that — {He 
looks at the jeweled necklace Barker has given 
Donna.) Good old Barker! Did you ever think, 



148 MADONNA 

Donna, that jewels grow in the earth — only some one 
must clean away the darkness before their beauty 
shines? Most rare things are like that. (Making 
point J and noting its effect upon her.) Love's a bit 
like it, too: the kind that crowns a life. My, my! 
how the hours are flying, and soon you and Gilbert 
will be facing that great world out there — hand in 
hand. {He impulsively hugs her as if in protection.) 
You can't know yet how foolishly we parents fear to 
let our children approach the things we've passed. But 
you all do it, somehow. So there's not much an old 
fool of a father can say to you now. {Looking at 
Madonna) Yes, there is one thing: one message. 

Donna 

{Nestling) 

Daddy, Gilbert said you'd wish to talk with me. 
That's why he won't be here to-night. Oh! he is so 
thoughtful and good. Why is it, several times to- 
night, when I thought of to-morrow, I almost wished 
he'd never come? Can't it go on just as it is between 
him and me ? I don't want it to be different. I can't 
think of — oh, no! I don't mean that — there's some- 
thing wrong with me — wrong. I try to be calm and 
happy — but I'm all upset and afraid of, and — oh! {He 
puts his hand on her head and pushes back curls.) 

Lee 

You just need somebody to catch all the unrest and 
touch it with a bigger meaning — to see the spirit in 



MADONNA 149 

ft. {Looking at Madonna again) I've been thinking 
lately perhaps I'll have to set you straight about it all. 

(Barker has entered with a log. He fixes the 
fire in silence, and it hums up. The wind out- 
side is heard occasionally.) 

Barker 
Shall I light the others? 

Donna 

Let me. Just the candles and the firelight. We'll 
sit beside it, Daddy, you and I, and talk, and the wind 
outside will tell us we are all alone. 

Barker 
{Crossing to door) 
I'll get the candles. 

Lee 

Let Donna. I like to watch her light them. 
(Donna exits.) 

Barker 

{After a pause, looking about the room, including 

picture) 

Pardon me, sir, but do you notice anything strange 
about the room to-night ? ( Lee questions. ) Somehow, 
it seems so sacred-like. 



I50 MADONNA 

Lee 

You noticed it, too? I thought it was just here. 
{Touching himself) It seems like some memory whis- 
pering silently. {He rises abruptly.) You sent my 
note to Mr. Gilbert? 

Barker 
He's hardly had time to get here yet. 

Lee 
Nonsense: I said she wanted to see him. 

Barker 
I'll show him right in. 

Lee 

And go to bed yourself and sleep if you can. 

{He places hand on heart quickly as though in 
great pain. Staggers. Barker goes to him.) 

Barker 

Sit down, sir. 

Lee 

{Recovering) 

It's the old trouble, you know. Can't keep up 
piuch longer. Doctor said so. Rupture of aneurism 



MADONNA 151 

threatened: that means a broken heart. I've had a 
hard time keeping the pieces together since — Donna 
mustn't know — about my long journey alone — that she 
and Gilbert will only have each other soon — ^very soon. 

Barker 
Don't talk that way, sir. 

Lee 

I won't. But you're provided for, old fellow. My ! 
My I (Grimly) I wonder if you'll look after me in 
the next world. 

Barker 

(Tenderly) 

I hope I've been good enough, sir. 

(Lee smiles and pats him tenderly as Donna 
re-enters with two long brass candlesticks. 
The door bell without is rung violently.) 

Donna 

Remember, Barker, Daddy and I are not home to a 
single soul. 

Barker 

(Smiling quaintly) 

I understand, Miss — not to a single soul. Good- 
night. 



152 MADONNA 

{He exits. The wind outside blows, and the 
fire burns brighter. Lee crosses to fireplace, 
watching her as she places the candlesticks 
down. The door is flung violently open, and 
Gilbert Steele enters hastily, out of breath, 
excited, throwing his snow-touched coat and hat 
down on chair. He is a clean-cut, very at- 
tractive fellow, about twenty-five, with a touch 
of boyish vivacity beneath the suggestion of 
reliable manliness. The two rush into each 
other s arms.) 

Donna 

Gilbert! 

Gilbert 

There is nothing the matter? Nothing? {He 
kisses her eagerly on the lips.) 

Donna 
Why, no, dearest, no. 

Gilbert 

It would break my heart if — {He kisses her 
again. ) 

Donna 

I'm so glad you've come; but — why did you? 



MADONNA 153 

Lee 
I guess I'm responsible. 

Gilbert 

{Seeing him) 

Oh! I beg your pardon. (They greet each other 
affectionately.) 

Lee 

One doesn't always see things In the fire with angels 
in one's arms. 

Donna 

Daddy! 

Gilbert 

I was alone, thinking how — how unworthy I was 
to have such happiness — ^what a weak fellow I'd been 
at times — and — then your note came. {He gives it 
to Donna.) 

Donna 

{Reading) 

" Come at once. Donna wants to see you." But 
I don't want to see you, Gilbert. 

Gilbert 
Don't you? 



154 MADONNA 

Donna 



(Confused) 



Oh, I mean — 



Gilbert 

{Solicitously) 

Why did you send for me, Mr. Lee? I thought 
you'd both wish to be alone. Is there something you 
want me to hear with her? Nothing's going to in- 
terfere ? 

Lee 

{Crosses slowly j puts hand on Gilbert's shoulders. 

Starts to speak seriously, hesitates, and 

notes Donna's intent look) 

Where are you going on your wedding trip ? 

Gilbert 
{Laughing) 
Now, that wasn't why — 

Donna 

Besides, that's our little secret. 

Lee 

Niagara Falls? {They vehemently deny it.) Well, 
wherever you go, don't be too polite to her, and don't 
act as though you'd never been married before. 



MADONNA 155 

Gilbert 
I am afraid everybody '11 know I'm an amateur. 

Lee 

(Musing) 

I'll never forget how I acted — and I was a good 
deal older than you. My! how proud and foolish 
you feel. 

Gilbert 

(Wisely) 
Yes, sir. 

Lee 

(Smiling) 

Get Gilbert some cigarettes, Donna. (She does so: 
Gilbert takes one^ and only smokes it a moment 
nervously.) Let me fix you something. 

Gilbert 

No, I'm not thirsty. 

Lee 

(Smiling) 

Not thirsty? That isn't a legitimate excuse! 

(There is a long pause. They look at one 
another in embarrassed silence. Lee has been 
smoking also.) 



156 MADONNA 

Donna 
Well, can't we sit down? 

Gilbert 
Sure. 

Lee 

Yes. {They all keep standing, however. He 
finally knocks ashes from his pipe, and sits by fireside.) 
Come here, the two of you. 

Donna 

Just like when you used to tell us fairy stories. 
Goodness! how long ago! 

Lee 

Perhaps that's what Fm going to tell you now — a 
real fairy story — one I've lived through and have not 
finished quite yet. Now a lot of people would laugh 
at me for talking this way to you two, but they'll 
never get the chance, will they? Life has made me 
believe in " big " things. Perhaps I am wise and 
preachy to-night, but I always feel that way, Donna, 
when — ^when I think of your mother. 

Donna 
{Reverently) 
My mother! 



MADONNA 157 

Gilbert 

{Same) 

It's about her you wish to speak to Donna? (Lee 
bows. Gilbert starts to rise.) Then hadn't I better 
go? I know you've always been silent about her. 

Lee 

No, boy. Stay! It's a father's last words to you 
both, and a whisper from a memory. (Gilbert sits 
beside the two. The clock strikes the half hour. The 
fire lights the group. The scene is full of poetry and 
suggestion.) I hadn't amounted to much before I 
met her: but somehow she believed in me and I felt 
she did. She made me want to do things, for her 
sake as well as my own. And she wouldn't let me 
wait till I had : she wanted to struggle along with me. 
We married, and she gave up many a better man. 
You must struggle together for a while. It will bring 
out the best in you — and perhaps I haven't altogether 
forgotten you — But it's of your mother I was 
speaking. I brought her from the church here in this 
room. It has always been home to me all these years. 
{Looking about) It hasn't changed much; only when 
you grew up, Donna, I moved the bed into my little 
room off, and put some books in. {Indicating books 
under picture of Madonna) But the pictures and 
things are about as they were when we first came here 
together, alone. {Reminiscently) She was very beauti- 
ful, children, very beautiful, with her soft eyes and 



158 MADONNA 

golden hair. How those months passed! We often 
sat by that window during the long summer evenings: 
I, talking over my work with her, and she listening 
gravely and sewing the baby clothes you were soon to 
wear. It was here, you know, you were born. I was 
with Barker in his room. (Smiling.) He seemed to 
think I only needed brandy — Ha! how long it was , 
till the late Mrs. B. came to tell me a little girl had 
come. They wouldn't let me speak to your mother 
that day; but, at night, I tip-toed into the room and 
closed that door. We were alone. On the tiny crib 
a hand rested as though it warned all trespassers 
away. I could not move for a long while. I felt in 
some shrine, where no man should have entered. Her 
breath was calm and steady, like music in the silence. 
She moved and brushed a curl from her brow, and 
the moonbeams fell upon her golden hair which haloed 
everything! I went nearer, like a thief, to steal a 
look at you. She did not hear me: she heard the 
breathing of our child, and only in her dreams. I 
pulled the coverlet down and looked at you. You 
weren't so pretty then. {He smiles.) And yet I 
don't think you ever seemed more wonderful to me. 
Your mother never moved, even when I knelt beside 
her and kissed her hand and tried to think the things 
I felt. {A long pausej as though he were lost in 
recollection. Donna looks up. Puts her hand on 
his, recalling him.) I don't know how long I was 
there, only from your mother's face the moonlight rose 
and threw its rays like fingers pointing to the picture 
above her bed. {Indicating Madonna) It was that 



MADONNA 159 

same picture. (Pause.) Children, there are some 
things we lock in our hearts and throw away the key 
or save the key to use it once. You two alone must 
know I felt somehow that night as though I knew all 
the secrets of the world — for I understood then what 
love was — what marriage really meant to those who 
really loved. (Tenderly) That was the most sacred 
moment in my life. ( There is a sense of awe present. ) 
As I sat there, Gilbert, I resolved to be worthy. We 
men never feel worthy, do we? (Gilbert lowers his 
head.) Well, I've tried to be. (Donna squeezes 
his hand.) And to that little bit of breathing flesh, 
now grown so like her mother, I promised all the best 
that could be — so that she would be a worthy wife 
and mother to the man she loved — as her mother was 
to me. Gilbert, she's the dearest thing I'm leaving 
behind (Correcting himself) I have. Take good care 
of her. I know you will 'cause I know you are 
worthy, too. (Long pause.) Your mother never 
left her bed. I told her of my midnight visit before 
she — and she only pressed my hand — oh! so faintly — 
and never said a word. But I knew she understood 
and was proud that her little girl would grow up. 
I couldn't help calling you Donna — " Madonna " — 
because somehow that night has always been a yes- 
terday. (He clears his throat.) Children, never be 
ashamed of the biggest and best thoughts you feel. I 
wonder if you two understand the real big thing an 
old, foolish, sentimental father is trying to tell you 
this wedding eve? (Calmly and reverently Donna 
rests her head upon her father s bosom. He puts his 



i6o MADONNA 

arm about her and looks at Gilbert^ who stretches 
out his hand in understanding and in reverence. 
Gilbert'^ jace is set and determined. Lee stands 
looking at them; then places their hands in each others. 
They watch him go back, take a candle, and hold it 
high above him before the Madonna and her Child. 
They look reverently at it, too. Pause. He puts the 
candle on the table near the picture and comes down.) 
Donna, go to your room. You'll want to be all by 
yourself, now. Say good-night to her, Gilbert, and 
good-by 'til I bring her to you in the church to- 
morrow. 

(Gilbert reaches over to her, she lifts her lips 
to his but he gently lowers her head and kisses, 
with infinite reverence, her hair. She lifts her 
head, a wonderful smile of spiritual love light- 
ing her eyes. They look at each other firmly. 
He turns to Lee, offers his hand. Lee hugs 
him. Gilbert tries to speak but cannot. He 
turns, halts before the Madonna a second, and 
then exits. Donna crosses to Lee. He takes 
her in his arms. She is very calm now. She 
leaves him, and with a look of emulation, 
proudly flung to the picture, she crosses and 
slowly goes off. 

Lee is alone. He staggers a moment as though 
seized with heart trouble. He recovers with 
effort. He puts out the lights, closes the door, 
fastens the windows, pulls down the shades, 
cutting out the moonlight and leaving only the 



MADONNA i6i 

firelight and a single candle to light the room. 
He takes this one candle and holds it high 
above the Madonna. He half murmurs before 
it. The clock strikes ten slowly, and he stands 
there motionless, like some shadow, lost in 
memory.) 



SLOW CURTAIN 



THE MAN MASTERFUL 



THE PEOPLE 

Oliver Williams {who does not appear) 
Mrs. Oliver Williams, his wife 
Edith Sherwood 



SCENE 
A room in Edith Sherwood's flat 



THE MAN MASTERFUL* 

A g iHE entrance from the halhvay is at the back 
t in right; the varnished door holds a heavy 
chain which, at rise of curtain, is fastened 
across. Upon the hack wall there are many small pic- 
tures and photographs; beneath them a long box-couch 
with a green covering. At the left, a double curtain 
drawn hides further rooms beyond. At the right, a 
bureau and some bookcases fill the space between the 
door and the window which opens out upon the fire- 
escape. There is a writing table in the center with 
chairs about. The room suggests the abode of a woman 
supporting herself, with its certain air of unspecified 
use coupled with touches purely feminine. There are 
some indications, however, that its owner is not with- 
out connections and sympathies more aristocratic than 
her present surroundings would imply. 

The stage is empty for a while, then a bell is heard 
off. The noise of some one behind the curtains is 
suggested evidently rising to open the downstairs front 
door. After a short delay a knock is heard upon the 
apartment door itself. Edith Sherwood enters from 

* Copyright, 1911, by George Middleton. All rights re- 
served. 

165 



1 66 THE MAN MASTERFUL 

the other rootrij and crosses, after portraying a sense 
of the importance of what is to happen. 

She is dressed in a neat, simple^ closely fitting ging- 
ham gown which may have been made by herself. She 
is tallj well-linedj robust, and vibrant. There is 
authority and self-reliance in her personality, and the 
beautiful Greek regularity of her face does not entirely 
conceal its warmth and health^. At present, though, 
there are traces of long vigil and mental suffering. 
She removes the chain, opens the door to discover Mrs. 
Oliver Williams standing outside, her hands half 
folded before her as though having waited in patience. 

Mrs. Williams is middle-aged, her hair turning 
gray, her face pinched and bloodless. There is little in- 
dication of any vitality save in her restless eyes: her 
manner is calm though not without conveying some 
studied intention throughout. She uses few gestures, 
and speaks almost without emotion in an even mono- 
tone, yet with a subtle strength in spite of her obvious 
physical weakness. She is very carelessly gowned, and 
her appearance at first would be always inconspicuous. 
She holds a letter in her hand to which she refers and 
then replaces in her handbag. MiSS Sherwood is 
slightly embarrassed. 

Mrs. Williams 
Is this Miss Sherwood? Edith Sherwood? 

Miss Sherwood 
Yes. 



THE MAN MASTERFUL 167 

Mrs. Williams 
I am Oliver Williams' wife. 

Miss Sherwood 

Oh, to be sure. I — I didn't mean you should take 
all this trouble, Mrs. Williams. 

Mrs. Williams 

I thought we could talk better. My husband might 
have come in at home. You were not expecting him 
herCj though, were you? 

Miss Sherwood 
No, not now. 

Mrs. Williams 
That would have been a pity, wouldn't it? 

Miss Sherwood 
Do come in. 

Mrs. Williams 
Thanks. 

(Mrs. Williams comes in almost diffidently 
as Miss Sherwood, deeply moved and trying 
to gather herself together, slowly crosses the 
door, and mechanically fastens the chain.) 



i68 THE MAN MASTERFUL 

Miss Sherwood 
Won't you sit down? 

Mrs. Williams 

Thanks. {She goes to a chair.) You wrote you 
wanted to talk to me. 

Miss Sherwood 
Yes, yes, but — 

Mrs. Williams 
I suppose it's about my husband. 

Miss Sherwood 
Yes, Mrs. Williams, it is — but — 

Mrs. Williams 
{Calmly) 
Well? 

Miss Sherwood 

{With a little nervous laugh) 

I knew exactly what I expected to say — ^but — but 
you're not like I thought. 



THE MAN MASTERFUL 169 

Mrs. Williams 

Then you've never seen me with him? (Miss 
Sherwood shakes her head slowly.) We go out 
very little together: he has other places where he — 

Miss Sherwood 

{Interrupting) 

Yes; that's what I want to talk of, Mrs. Williams — 
about myself and him. 

Mrs. Williams 
I thought so; ft was kind of you to write — first. 

Miss Sherwood 
( Temporizing) 
Perhaps there was a little curiosity, too. 

Mrs. Williams 

To see what Oliver Williams' wife was like? 
Well, it did surprise you, didn't it? And please you, 
too! (Miss Sherwood conventionally protests.) 
Oh, people never look at me when I pass. I know. 
But I wasn't always parched and sapless: once I was 
like you — and not so many years ago — like you, red 
and strong — but never so handsome — no; yet inside I 
was alive and beautiful. That's just as good, isn't it? 



I70 THE MAN MASTERFUL 

Miss Sherwood 
To be sure — to be sure. 

Mrs. Williams 

{Eying her) 

Well, now that 5^ou see Fm not much of a rival 
(Miss Sherwood turns abruptly toward her: they 
face each other) — suppose you tell me what you were 
going to. 

Miss Sherwood 

It's harder than I thought. But I felt I simply 
had to do it. He's not aware I wrote you, is he? 

Mrs. Williams 
I tell him nothing. 

Miss Sherwood 

I'm glad, though it seems somehow disloyal to him. 
{Impulsively) He told me you didn't love him. (Mrs. 
Williams starts slightly.) Oh, you don't, do you? 
Oh, give me the truth and I'll explain. 

Mrs. Williams 

{After a moment's deliberation as though calmly 
trying to measure the other woman) 

Why should that concern you and him? 



THE MAN MASTERFUL 171 

Miss Sherwood 

Oh, it does, it does. I must know that before I 
speak further. I must. I must. Do you love him? 

Mrs. Williams 

No. (Miss Sherwood breathes easier, though the 
other scrutinizes her closely.) But I watch him all 
the time in silence. I wonder if he feels my eyes on 
him. That's how I knew there was somebody else, 
knew it was you. 

Miss Sherwood 
{Slightly surprised) 
He has spoken of me? 

Mrs. Williams 

Once or twice, before he realized you were going to 
mean something to him. He's been silent lately. 
People are so careless while they are still unconscious 
and {pointedly) and innocent. 

Miss Sherwood 
{Indignantly) 
Mrs. Williams, I'm a good woman. I'm straight. 

Mrs. Williams 

{Slowly, as though satisfied) 

Yes, I believe you. I wanted to be sure. Now 
there can be truth between us. 



172 THE MAN MASTERFUL 

Miss Sherwood 

I intend to keep everything honest — honest or noth- 
ing. 

Mrs. Williams 

How can I help you? Fm only his wife^ — Oliver 
Williams' wife. {Faintly smiling) I wonder if you 
know what that means? 

Miss Sherwood 

I had my idea of what she would — should be like, 
but I can't make you out; you're different. 

Mrs. Williams 

Fm not the woman he married: Fm made over. 
He has changed, too, in fifteen years. Things are 
different in the spring. You feel you're more his 
sort, eh? 

Miss Sherwood 
He thinks so. 

Mrs. Williams 
Do you? 

Miss Sherwood 
He loves me. 



THE MAN MASTERFUL 173 

Mrs. Williams 

{Half to herself) 

So! it has come to him again! {After a pause) 
Well, now that I've seen you, there's nothing sur- 
prising about that. And you? 

Miss Sherwood 

I care, too. I don't bow my head when I say it. I 
love him. 

Mrs. Williams 
It's in your eyes. 

Miss Sherwood 

But I made up my mind he shouldn't look deep 
into them and see for himself till I was first sure you 
didn't love him. 

Mrs. Williams 
And now that you are sure? 

Miss Sherwood 

I can ask you, as I intended, without compunction, 
let us have our happiness. 

Mrs. Williams 
To marry you ? 

/ 



174 THE MAN MASTERFUL 

Miss Sherwood 
Yes, of course that. 

Mrs. Williams 
Give him up? Entirely? 



Miss Sherwood 



Yes. 



Mrs. Williams 
{As though recalling) 
How strange! 

Miss Sherwood 

— in my seeking you, his wife, in this unusual, open 
way? 

Mrs. Williams 

No; I was thinking of something else. 

Miss Sherwood 

I see no fault in loving, understand me: so I give 
no excuse, but I must make an explanation. I sat 
here many nights puzzling over what was best, for I 
knew by doing the bravest thing I could keep my love 
most clean. When I first met him I didn't know he 
was married: no one of his many friends ever spoke 
of you. Oh, I didn't mean — Forgive me. (Mrs. 



THE MAN MASTERFUL 175 

Williams motions her to continue.) But I wasn't 
on my guard, and then, as you said, it was all so 
unconscious and beautiful. Yet I soon sensed his in- 
terest: we women are never surprised when men love 
us, are we? We sort of take it for granted. {En- 
thusiastically) But he was so unusual — such a wonder- 
ful, masterful man! 

Mrs. Williams 
Yes; masterful. 

Miss Sherwood 

And I was flattered. I confess it; why shouldn't 
I be — to have Oliver Williams pause and look! Then 
one evening he told me about you. It must have 
been because he knew I was straight, and his feeling 
was the right kind. He saw it pained me, shocked me. 
From that moment I was a divided self. I'm anxious 
you should see how everything was. I tried to draw 
away gradually, but that only led him on. Then, 
when I was about to go for good, to give up my little 
work here — for I felt I couldn't escape him when he 
talked (Mrs. Williams smiles knowingly) — ^he told 
me you didn't love him. Then, Mrs. Williams, I 
stayed deliberately, because I owed something to the 
thing I knew by now I felt. I wanted to share in 
his mastery, his career — before all. So I saw there 
could be no compromise in secrecy. {She is silent a 
few moments.) 



176 THE MAN MASTERFUL 

Mrs. Williams 
Love dies of its own breath with the windows closed. 

Miss Sherwood 

That's why I struggled to find what was right; but 
love was no longer a heart-crying emotion; it was a 
problem writhing in my brain as well — and that isn't 
good for love. I couldn't have stood my burning mind 
much more, if he hadn't finally said that — that, with 
you, there was another, too. 

Mrs. Williams 

{Visibly moved for the first time) 



Was? 



And had been. 



Miss Sherwood 



Mrs. Williams 
{Poignantly) 
He told you that? 

Miss Sherwood 
Yes. 

Mrs. Williams 

To bribe you he told you that!! Oh! {She bows 
her head in a long silence.) 



THE MAN MASTERFUL 177 

Miss Sherwood 

{Somewhat at a loss) 

I didn't mean to walk in on anything sacred or 
intimate. It's yours and only mine so far as it might 
help us to some solution. But we must be naked, 
Mrs. Williams, in moments like these. Perhaps he 
thought it would be so much easier for us all If I 
knew. It did seem so to me — if only you and I quite 
understood things right — once and for all. 

Mrs. Williams 
{Slowly) 

It does seem simple-like on the surface, doesn't it? 
{She lifts her head and speaks very deliberately.) 
But you can't have him, do you hear me? You can't 
have him! 

Miss Sherwood 
{Impetuously) 
What's to prevent him if I say— 

Mrs. Williams 

Not these frail arms of mine. No. They couldn't 
keep Oliver Williams from having his own way. 
He'd brush them aside and crush them like those who 
oppose him out in the world. But you alone can stop 
him — and you will. 



178 THE MAN MASTERFUL 

Miss Sherwood 
Step in the way of my own happiness? 

Mrs. Williams 
Are you so sure it would be happiness? 

Miss Sherwood 

Yes; it's everything. I can't do without him; I've 
tried to think of it : it's terrible. I know now why one 
commits crimes. I feel sometimes as though I could — 
oh, no, no. I love him. {Bitterly) If you don't love 
each other, why shouldn't he be mine? Did I come 
and steal him? Wasn't love dead between you before 
I cam.e? Why shouldn't I have him? Is marriage 
for you a knot tied in Heaven to whip and bruise 
those others who come within its swing? Why should 
those dry ideals of wifehood stand in the way of throb- 
bing lives? Mine and perhaps the man you love. 
Why? 

Mrs. Williams 

{Calmly) 

Do you believe it's that which stands in your way? 
Listen: if you and he had gone away together I think 
I would respect you almost as much as I do your 
coming to me now. You should have done what I 
hadn't the strength to do and I would have under- 
stood. But you didn't; so I treat you differently. 
Don't think it's my pride, my duty, or my religion 



THE MAN MASTERFUL 179 

that will keep me firm against you. No. No. I 
wish I had those excuses. 

Miss Sherwood 
Then it's small-soulness. 

Mrs. Williams 

No, it's my absolute helplessness now. You can't 
have him, because I need him. 

Miss Sherwood 
I need him, too. He needs me. 

Mrs. Williams 

Oliver Williams needs you ! 

Miss Sherwood 
Yes, I can help him to achieve. 

Mrs. Williams 

You! {She smiles; then shakes her head.) You 
can't have him. He's my habit of life; I'm too settled 
to change. 

Miss Sherwood 
{Leaning closer to her) 
Even to go to the other one? 



i8o THE MAN MASTERFUL 

Mrs. Williams 

{With a touch of indignation) 

After a dozen years, go to himf What! Take to 
him, because of an opportunity, this sapless body! 
Give this that belongs to the husband, to the man 
who loved me vs^hen I was like you! No! No! 
The memory of the thing he loved is better for him 
to keep now; that still warms the coldness. This I 
am to-day would freeze and starve. 

Miss Sherwood 
{Desperately) 
Yet you have starved him all these years. 

Mrs. Williams 
{Quickly) 
Not by taking from him something he had. 

Miss Sherwood 
Yet perhaps he still hungers. 

Mrs. Williams 

You can't tempt me with that. The taste would 
destroy the need; now, for him it's an inspiration, a 
dream unpossessed. He is becoming something and 
I know it's through me. {Recalling) He never mar- 
ried. He sends me presents, without a word, on the 



THE MAN MASTERFUL i8i 

anniversaries — as if I needed reminders. But he gets 
no answer, expects nothing, for he never thought I 
cared. 

Miss Sherwood 
Never ? 

Mrs. Williams 

If he had once seen my love I should have gone to 
him then. I wouldn't have let him suffer the other 
way — or I would have — {she recoils slightly) — I 
nearly did it as it was! Instead, instead I told my 
husband first, as you have told me first; opened my 
poor heart to him in trust. That's really why you 
can't have my husband, for he didn't let me go: he 
kept me — kept me. 

Miss Sherwood 

He loved you at the time. 

Mrs. Williams 

He wouldn't let another have the thing he owned! 
He called it love, but words are only masks and we 
all use many words. Yet stunned, bewildered, per- 
haps flattered, too, that I should be worth fighting to 
keep, I weakly submitted to his first wishes. 

Miss Sherwood 

{Struggling against the irony she begins to see) 

It's small, petty revenge you're taking; you're mak- 
ing him and me pay for your own weakness. 



i82 THE MAN MASTERFUL 

Mrs. Williams 

No; life's simply paying you both back for the 
weakness he made! It was strength that made me 
go to him first — strength. I've never known It since. 
There was something being born at that moment, a 
soul, a character, and he smothered it. It wanted to 
live. But It was such a little thing It couldn't fight 
very much; It hadn't learned how. It died easily; he 
closed the windows about It. 

Miss Sherwood 

{Impressed in spite of herself by the other s manner, 
she shudders and is silent for a while.) 

Mrs. Williams, you are speaking of the man I love. 
You are saying dreadful words. To plant in me 
doubts alone would be cruel. Don't you realize, I'm 
trying to be a decent woman, fair to you? But you 
must be fair to me: he Is mine, remember, while I 
care — ^mine here in me. You must let me understand 
what you mean. 

Mrs. Williams 

Yes. We must be naked, you said: it chills, but I 
think you're worth telling it to; for it will save you 
from him. 

Miss Sherwood 

{Loyally) 

You can't strip him. He's too wonderful to me. 
You mustn't try. 



THE MAN MASTERFUL 183 

Mrs. Williams 
Too bad he should lose a love like yours. 

Miss Sherwood 
{Firmly) 
I am waiting to be made sure that he must. 

Mrs. Williams 

{Her voice gradually warms in color as she speaks) 

Then look at me when I have finished telling you. 
Blame me, if you will; I do myself, though it doesn't 
seem to alter consequences. But remember, it was that 
he could do it, that he could rip me from the roots, 
take me away to isolation ; a lonely island in the Lakes 
where things were barren and the sands dry and burn- 
ing and I had only him before me day and night. 
Then to strip me of all the garments I had worn, to 
put on the harness of daily service to his man's needs, 
to do things I never had done before, to fetch and 
carry at his will. And you ask, why, why did I? 
Because he talked to me the way you know he has ; he 
made me believe he was doing it for my good. And 
I kept on because I felt then I had offended him 
somehow — him who couldn't keep my love — and that 
he might also see I was wiping out the fault. But 
he had other reasons than to clear myself in his sight ; 
he was doing something else deliberately all the time, 
methodically, carefully, studiously. But I didn't see 



1 84 THE MAN MASTERFUL 

it at first — pain dulled me too much to look outside. 
I only knew in the loneliness the days were growing 
longer after a while, and when I faltered, he came 
to me kindly and helped me with his own hands to 
fetch and carry. And all the days grew longer and 
he helped me more and more. And then I began to 
ask his help and he smiled. I knew why later. He 
gave it gladly. And then one day I was ill and / let 
him wait on me without the asking. From that mo- 
ment I was lost — lost. Oh, I see every step of it 
now. If only the hand of him I loved could have 
touched me just once; but I was too far away to feel 
it and I was too numb and I was living in a fog. 
Then things lifted slowly as fogs do, and I saw what 
my husband was accomplishing. I began to watch to 
be sure I was right. That's where I began to watch. 
I was right. I saw through his heart. I put tests: 
he alvv'ays met them, did as I expected. It fascinated 
me to watch, as though I saw the gallows being built — 
interested me, eased the pain somehow, too. He was 
devoting himself to accomplish one end — ^with all his 
absorbing power, one end: to make himself necessary 
to me; to make me see I was his dependent thing. 



Miss Sherwood 
( En th usiastically ) 

That was strength! Wonderful strength! If he 
had done that to me I should have loved him for it! 



THE MAN MASTERFUL 185 

Mrs. Williams 

It wouldn't have hurt you. You're that sort of 
woman; made to live with steel. That's maybe why- 
he loves you. He feels that perhaps. You would 
have been his slave! 

Miss Sherwood 
Yes, to my glory! 

Mrs. Williams 
And you couldn't have left him? 

Miss Sherwood 

No! 

Mrs. Williams 

Neither could I — neither can I ; but for a different 
reason. Do you think him so heartless to have kept 
it always like that? Oh, no; he knew his methods 
well. He came to me one day and told me I could go 
if I desired — leave him. He wanted me to credit 
his generosity, to bind me closer, to make me believe 
I was staying of my own free will — that strongest 
bond of all. He didn't know I saw through him and 
that I didn't dare wound his pride further by showing 
him I knew. But each time I tried to break I felt 
bound more and more by the sense of my own help- 
lessness, my own limitations which he had planned to 
make me realize. Before, sheer love without thought 



i86 THE MAN MASTERFUL 

and self doubt could have swept me on safely through 
anything: but now — now I doubted myself. And in 
that doubt I found my own unworthiness. I couldn't 
take that to the other. I couldn't, but my husband 
did not know I couldn't. That's why I stayed. 
That's why I saw only too willingly the many obstacles 
for leaving him he used to throw in my way — finding 
eager excuses within myself for the crime against my 
love — ; that's why more and more I slipped back, back 
upon that helplessness which at least obtained service 
from him. And as I took it more and more greedily, 
with the years I lost more and more the red blood 
of life, and, for sheer self-protection, I began, in turn, 
to bind him to me more and more by that helplessness 
until there was nothing of my own strength left — only 
the rut habit dragged me through, the rut I have never 
been able to escape from all these years. And that's 
why you can't have him. Look at me! Look what 
I am! I've no strength to be alone. He's my habit 
of life. I'd be lost without him. I can't do things by 
myself. I'm helpless — dependent. I'm his. He tied 
me to him, bound me: I'm round his neck: he must 
drag me on. You can't, with your love, untie that 
knot; I can't. He tied it. He has got to keep the 
thing he made. I'm his. He's mine — mine — to the 
end! 

{There is a long pause. MiSS Sherwood has 
bowed her head, completely overcome, Mrs. 
Williams, however, soon gains control of 
herself, covertly looks toward the other, and 
waits. They resume very quietly.) 



THE MAN MASTERFUL 187 

Miss Sherwood 
If ft only had been love I could forgive him. 

Mrs. Williams 
So could I — a little — but not myself. 

Miss Sherwood 

It wasn't honest of him to tell me of the other one, 
after that. 

Mrs. Williams 

He drove the other deeper Into my life. I did not 
know he realized It. That's something to have learned. 

Miss Sherwood 
{Bitterly) 
To bribe me! It wasn't honest! 

Mrs. Williams 

{Folloiuing up her advantage) 

He's not honest, I tell you. He has a way of stalk- 
ing up and down, making you believe him In spite of 
yourself because his pride Is In It. It's his power. I 
gave him that power. 

Miss Sherwood 
You! 



1 88 THE MAN MASTERFUL 

Mrs. Williams 

Yes. I watched it come Into birth there on the lonely 
island. Don't you see his own strength was on trial? 
He couldn't afford to fail. So, through conquering 
me, a frail woman, he found the way out there to 
conquer in the world. 

Miss Sherwood 
I wonder if he knows that? 

Mrs. Williams 

(Shaking her head and smiling faintly) 

That's my secret and why I sometimes smile. So 
you can teach him nothing. 

Miss Sherwood 

And I thought I could give him something greater 
than you! 

Mrs. Williams 

You'd be like the others. (Miss Sherwood looks 
up slowly.) I can tell you. There have been others. 
He will remember you, for he forgets when once 
he has. 

Miss Sherwood 
That strips everything. 



THE MAN MASTERFUL 189 

Mrs. Williams 

{Calmly) 

I must fight for what is mine. I watch him: I 
always know when they come. I take them away 
from him one by one: there's a way. You are better 
than the others: I've given you the truth. {There is 
silence, then she rises,) And if he should come here — 
and talk? 

Miss Sherwood 
{Looking up) 
I'd see you clinging to his arm. 

Mrs. Williams 

{Relieved) 

Then go away. Don't wait or hope for me. Dead 
trees stand long. What good you've brought each 
other through the feeling will remain. {Smiling 
grimly) I don't mind that since I have him. 

Miss Sherwood 
Yes, ril go. Everything is over. 

Mrs. Williams 
Good-by. 

Miss Sherwood 
If only he valued you. 



190 THE MAN MASTERFUL 

Mrs. Williams 

( Smiling enigmatically ) 

I don't want him to : that would make it harder 
for me and him. 

Miss Sherwood 
I see. {She buries her head in her arms.) 

Mrs. Williams 

{After some hesitation) 

I feel for you with what there is left in me. Mem- 
ory just now made me live and suffer for a moment. 
It will be with you, too, a long while. Then some 
morning you will awake without his name on your 
lips; that will cut deepest when you think of it, for 
it seems disloyal to forget. But that also will pass 
and you'll find new reasons besides the ones I've shown 
for doing what you must do. I know: we all fool 
ourselves so to make things easier. Good-by. 



Miss Sherwood 



Good-by. 



Mrs. Williams 
{At the door) 
If he had only let me go — made me go! 



THE MAN MASTERFUL 191 

Miss Sherwood 
He would have been free and I might have — 

Mrs. Williams 
Strange how life works out. 

Miss Sherwood 

(Yearning) 

I might have — 

Mrs. Williams 

Who knows? He might have been different if he 
hadn't conquered me. 

Miss Sherwood 
/ must suffer for it. 

Mrs. Williams 

The best thing he has loved, too. Strange! 

(As Mrs. Williams is about to go out of 
the door which she has opened a sudden idea 
strikes Miss Sherwood. She rises and faces 
Mrs. Williams.) 

Miss Sherwood 

Mrs. Williams, did you tell the truth? Did you 
tell everything? Do you still love — ? (She halts 
helplessly at the others silence.) What difference 



192 THE MAN MASTERFUL 

would it make, anyway? It's over. Oh! ! — (She 
comes slowly down and sits upon the chair again, 
her hands clasped before her.) Yet it was masterful!! 
{She seems to glow at the thought, but Mrs. Wil- 
liams only smiles enigmatically and slowly goes out, 
quietly closing the door after her.) 



THE CURTAIN FALLS SLOWLY 



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HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK 



FELIX E. SCHELLING'S ENGLISH LITERATURE DURING 
THE LIFETIME OF SHAKESPEARE 

8vo. $2.50 net ; by mail, $2.70. 

"A philosophy of literature. . . . Suggestive, interesting, learned. . . . 
A most illuminating chapter on Shakespeare's contemporary drama- 
tists. . . . Well thought out and inspiring. . . . He has shown the great 
Elizabethan dramatist's real literary character by pointing out the stock 
of which his genius was the supreme efflorescence."— i-iV^rary Digest. 

H. T. STEPHENSON'S THE EUZABETHAN PEOPLE 

With 70 illustrations. $2.00 net ; by mail, $2.16. 

A vivid account by an authority of such matters as "Country 
Life and Character"; "Amusements in General" ; " Celebra- 
tion of the Calendar " ; " The Love of Spectacles " ; " Popular 
Superstitions" ; " Birth, Baptism, Marriage, Death" ; " Do- 
mestic Life." 

" Gives us a human insight into the character and daily life of Shake- 
speare's audience. The account is well ordered and thorough. The 
style is easy and entertaining." — The Bookman. 

H. T. STEPHENSON'S SHAKESPEARE'S LONDON 

With 42 illustrations. $2.00 net; by mail, $2.15. 

A vivid portrayal and scholarly study, largely from con- 
temporaneous sources, of the topography, customs, and 
picturesque side of Elizabethan life. The illustrations are 
mostly from old prints. 

"It is something more than a mere topographical survey; the daily 
life of the people is described as vividly as their streets, their houses, and 
the mere external aspects of their week to week existence. . . . Brings 
each scene directly before the eye of the reader." — Boston Transcript. 

STOPFORD A. BROOKE'S ON TEN PLAYS OF SHAKE- 

SPEARE 

8vo. $2.25 net; by mail, $2.38. 

Midsummer Night's Dream, Winter's Tale, Merchant of 
Venice, As You Like It, Richard II., Richard III., Macbeth, 
Tempest, Romeo and Juliet, Coriolanus not so much analyzed 
as " appreciated " in a thoroughly sympathetic spirit and 
genial style. 

" A more delightful volume of criticism it would be hard to find."— 
Boston Transcript. 

TEN BRINK'S FIVE LECTURES ON SHAKESPEARE 

The Poet and the Man ; The Chronology of Shakespeare's 

Works ; Shakespeare as Dramatist, as Comic Poet, as Tragic 

Writer. — Translated by Julia Franklin. $1.25. 

•' No single volume on the great dramatist is, in our judgment, superior 
in value to this modest but extremely able vrov'k.."— Outlook. 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

34 WEST 3 3D STREET NEW YORK 



OCT ^M 



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One copy del. to Cat. Div. 



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